


Megalo||Vania: Heavens Divide

by AMX004_Qubeley



Series: Megalo|Vania [2]
Category: Undertale (Video Game), 悪魔城ドラキュラ | Castlevania Series, 悪魔城ドラキュラ 暁月の円舞曲 と 蒼月の十字架 | Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow & Dawn of Sorrow
Genre: Action/Adventure, Alternate Timelines, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Anime Fight Scenes, Conspiracies, Crossover, Gen, Multiple Protagonists, Past Character Death, Reboot/reimagining of Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow, Requires little to no knowledge of Castlevania lore, Slow Burn, Spoilers - Pacifist Route, Starring Kiefer Sutherland as Venom "Punished" Chara, Trans/Nonbinary Characters, Vampire angst, Violence, Weird Time Shit, crossover AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2018-05-29
Packaged: 2019-01-07 00:24:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 45
Words: 249,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12221988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMX004_Qubeley/pseuds/AMX004_Qubeley
Summary: The year is 2035: Nearly fifteen years after the Kingdom of Monsters emerged from the bowels of the Earth, and thirty-six years after Dracula’s ultimate defeat in 1999.Vampire hunter Alucard and his companion Yoko Belnades find themselves diverted from their mission and stranded on Mount Ebott by mysterious forces. Exchange student Soma Cruz and shrine maiden Mina Hakuba find their lives changed forever by the machinations of a bizarre conspiracy. And Asriel Dreemurr, the troubled King of Mount Ebott, encounters a shocking figure from his past... and another world.All these threads intertwine as Castle Dracula beckons to its new master...ACT 1: Prologue - Convergence  ~ Ch. 1-10ACT 2: The Realm of Dracula ~ Ch. 11-20ACT 3: Chara Rising ~ Ch. 21-30ACT 4: Heir to the Throne ~ Ch. 31-40ACT 5: Fate of the Devil ~ Ch. 41-45





	1. An Unexpected Detour, Part I

**Author's Note:**

> Wait! It's dangerous to go alone. Take this:
> 
> (source: [Patrick Robinson](http://patmandx-main.tumblr.com/post/170268215761/another-commission-i-did-for-wellmanicuredman))

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Alucard goes on a trip.

There was fire on the mountain. Burning, creeping up the forested slopes, gobbling all it came across; fire fed by shells filled with phosphorous and napalm that had fallen days, weeks ago, but whose thirst had yet to be quenched.

Only one soul still lived in this inferno, or rather, _under_ it, in ancient sealed-off tunnels that had once housed a civilization-in-exile for long, stretched-out generations. They’d fled deeper, deeper, deeper still, into the bowels of the mountain where magma cast an orange glow across the stone—pinned between two hells, a purgatory without the promise of heaven.

The survivor, the sole survivor, the exile, thought only of the family they’d lost. The friends they’d lost. Their smiling faces and gentle voices tingled like the phantom sensations of a hand torn away—a part of their very soul that had been lopped off and cauterized.

The howling wind died down. The ashes grew cold. Their provisions began to run low, and then ran out. They crawled into what had once been a subterranean castle, found the ancient coffin with their name on it, and lay in it, pulling the lid shut over their face.

_There is a better world out there,_ something whispered in their head.

_No. Not anymore. It’s burned._ They had watched it burn ten—no, eleven times now. There was no world for them above the surface of the Earth—or beneath it.

_No, not that one. You remember, don’t you? Visiting it once upon a dream._

The exile  _did_ remember it.  _Dare I dream of it again?_

In their mind’s eye they thought they could see a soft white hand reaching out for them. They reached out in turn—but their fingers only brushed against the smooth wooden surface of the coffin. _I want to see you again._

_Sleep now, and I will let you dream of home._

It would hardly be the first time they had died in their sleep. It would not even be their most painful death.

They folded their hands across their chest, mimicking the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, although they brought no lavish riches with them. Clasping the jeweled golden locket that hung from a chain around their neck, they let their eyelids grow heavy—although in the darkness it made no difference whether their eyes were open or closed.

And in th eir old coffin, in a state of living death,  slumber took the exile.  T hey hoped that before they ceased to be altogether, they would dream of other worlds than this.

–

The heavy stone lid of the coffin slid open, haltingly, by fits and starts, as the men pulling it aside struggled with its weight. Bright lights intruded on the total blackness of the velvet-padded space inside the coffin, prompting an annoyed hiss from its occupant’s mouth and a glare from its occupant’s piercing golden eye.

A man stood over the open coffin like a turn-of-the-century Egyptologist ransacking a pharaoh’s tomb. His head occluded the overhead light, in effect reducing himself to a silhouette. But the fringes of his hair glowed a rusty red, giving his inadvertent recreation of the upcoming eclipse a frizzy corona.

“ _Wakey, wakey, sleepyhead. You’ve got a job to do.”_

The coffin’s occupant rose with a body stiff and straight as a board, levitating several feet into the air. Long and glossy tresses of hair so pale they were nearly silver dangled from his head, brushing against his back as his body righted itself.

The sleeper’s bare feet touched the cool marble floor. His arms unfolded. Empty hands dangled limp at his sides. The sleeper, despite not being happy with the intrusion, did not yawn or stretch or blink in the sudden change from slumber to alertness. It was as if a switch had been flipped.

The waking sleeper spoke little, but had a deep, sonorous voice like fine red wine belying his lithe and elfin physique. _“Is it time?”_

The man sent to wake the sleeper responded, “Almost.”

“ _How many months until the eclipse?”_

“Four.”

“ _You woke me up_ four months early?” The sleeper’s voice was frigid, laced with icy crystals of irritation like a frosted-over window in the middle of winter. _“It has been hardly eight months.”_

The red-haired man ignored the sleeper’s whining. “We have other tasks to keep you busy until the eclipse. You’ll be happy to know the good Director has seen fit to assign you your previous partner.”

“Hm.”

“I thought you’d be happier.”

“I am.”

The red-haired man shook his head. “Now, come this way. We need to get you dressed and sealed again.”

“Is that necessary this time?” The sleeper crossed his arms. His frigid irritation had warmed to a smoldering anger.

“What, getting dressed? As much as I’d get a kick out of seeing you do wetwork in your pants—pardon the innuendo—”

“No, not that,” he said, an unspoken insult he might as well have appended to that sentence hanging in the air like a ghost.

“Sorry.” The red-haired man grinned at the sleeper mockingly. “My friend, you really only have yourself to blame for not reading your contract.”

–

Alucard had been almost exclusively nocturnal for the majority of his unusually long life, and true, he had spent long stretches of the past few centuries in a box, but despite his assistant’s constant joking insinuations, he knew very well what coffee was. When the waitress stopped by to take their order, he took his with cream, sugar, and a dash of chili powder.

“It’s better than it sounds,” he insisted to the bemused woman.

His assistant eyed Alucard’s attire. Black double-breasted suit jacket. Black shirt. Black waistcoat. Black tie. Black pants, black shoes, black socks. It all matched perfectly with his impossibly-perfect, shoulder-length black hair. (And, to break up the monotony, an expertly-folded red handkerchief tucked into his breast pocket.) She shook her head. “I keep expecting you to take it black.”

His assistant, or intern, or whatever they called them these days, was Yoko Belnades, great-great-great-great granddaughter of a witch he’d known fairly well a couple centuries ago. Looking at her gave Alucard an intense sense of deja-vu. She had the same eyes as her ancestor, the same soft and elfin face, the same blonde hair (but a bit longer), albeit with the benefit of modern hygiene.

And, of course, she, like her distant ancestor, was a witch, and quite a good one. Not quite the prodigy Sypha had been, but of course, as a modernly-educated woman she knew things her ancestor could never have known, like what dioxygen difluoride was and why you should stay far away from it.

“Ready to order yet?” the waitress asked.

Alucard held up his hand and shook his head. “Nothing for me, thank you.”

Yoko flipped through the menu. “What the hell. Belgian waffle with strawberries, extra cream, extra crispy bacon on the side.”

Alucard raised an eyebrow. “How decadent.”

“After Dunwich I think we’ve earned some indulgence. Oh, wait—” She flagged down the waitress before she’d walked five steps to the next table. “Baileys in the coffee, please.”

Alucard couldn’t argue with that. They’d spent the past week of their four-month tour investigating a secluded Lovecraftian-cult-meets-right-wing-militia in Maine, and had driven down to this sleepy town in Connecticut in the middle of the night in a rental car that had smelled strongly of fish and was so riddled with bullet holes that it was more empty space than car. Before the car could collapse with them inside, Alucard and Yoko had decided to just set it alight on the side of the road and _walk_ the rest of the way into town.

A dreadful end for a good automobile, yes, but as Yoko had reminded Alucard, their employers, the Agency, would pick up the tab.

Now, one motel check-in later and several showers later, they sat in a diner, waiting for their next orders to come down from on high.

Alucard checked his phone, fumbling with its inward-facing camera. Yoko called it a “selfie.” He squinted. His face was as perfectly composed as ever. But the eyes—the eyes were always the hardest thing for him to get used to. They were the wrong color.

Alucard set the phone down turned his attention to one of the big TV screens currently playing the news at muted volume. They’d never had news like this when he was growing up, or even news like this when he’d been an adult. In the old days, you could go days or weeks without knowing what was going on the next town over. Today, you were inundated with even the most provincial world leaders’ daily eating habits, usually accompanied by some sort of moral judgment over how they preferred their eggs.

Every time he woke up—usually for month-long stretches in between eight to twelve months of blissful dreamless oblivion over these past ten years—the media landscape seemed to become even more grotesquely obnoxious.

And yet, Alucard was powerless to look away. It was as mesmerizing as it was headache-inducing.

On the news, a middle-aged newscaster was monologuing to the camera, a photo of a gruff-looking, lantern-jawed man with salt-and-pepper hair and horn-rimmed glasses, his hand over his heart, projected on screen. The nonsense word “Spanglegate” was emblazoned under the picture. The sound was muted, but the subtitles were on.  _ “Edison Enright’s campaign for President has become mired in yet another controversy as the  _ _ New Jersey _ _ senator appeared to forget the words to ‘The Star Spangled Banner’ at last night’s baseball game between the Cubs and the Red Sox…” _

A man who was definitely not Alucard’s and Yoko’s waitress stopped by with two cups of coffee—both black—and a large dish covered by a stainless steel dome, which Alucard and Yoko both suspected did not contain a waffle.

The waiter set the dish down on the table and pulled off the dome, revealing a thin black booklet. Alucard grabbed it, and the waiter promptly took the dish back off the table. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’ll come right by with the  _ right _ order.”

Alucard flipped through it. A new Japanese government-issued passport (for his next trip to the Shrine) for a man named… “Arikado Genya,” he intoned.

“‘Arikado’? Again?” Yoko shrugged. She did not approve of the name. He liked it. He’d used it for the past ten years exclusively for these occasions. It was easy for him to remember. “At least it’s better than Alex Lecarde.”

Alucard shook the passport, dislodging a loose folded sheet of paper that had been stuck between two pages of fabricated customs stamps. He unfolded it, revealing a type-written message stamped with the Agency’s official seal—spiny bat wings wrapped around an inverted crucifix. He shared the message with Yoko:

_ Alucard and Yoko Belnades, _

_ You are both required to immediately set course for Mount Ebott before returning to Hakuba Shrine. _

“A detour? It’s a bit out of our way,” Yoko said, wrinkling her nose. “I was hoping we could spend a bit more time in Japan…”

Mount Ebott. The land of monsters. Alucard’s eye wandered to the TV yet again, where, by happenstance, the mountain was now on the news—and its king, a humanoid beast with the head of a white goat and a black eyepatch, was speaking on camera.  _ “Of course, we’re all very excited for the eclipse! I only hope my  _ _ busy  _ _ schedule permits me to attend the festivities next week.” _

The video cut away, and the newscaster continued:  _ “Of course, some people have a very different brand of enthusiasm.”  _ A man in a white suit, with a pale blue stole draped over his shoulders, appeared on camera, the  chyron scrolling at the bottom of the screen identifying him as  one  F ather Graham Jones,  religious advisor . According to him, the eclipse would mark the end of the world.

Alucard suppressed a knowing smile. The priest was _almost_ right.

–

The next morning, Mount Ebott loomed ahead of Alucard and Yoko. It was early in the morning; the sun had only just begun to peek above the horizon, but the mountain was full of lights.

The mountain was a long-extinct volcano, dormant for many thousands of years. It had once been dome-shaped, although a large portion of its summit had been sheared off. A thick growth of trees covered its slopes up to a certain point at which the forest thinned dramatically. A few thin streams trickled down the mountainside. Grassy plains, thick forests, and a sparkling lake surrounded the mountain. This was Mount Ebott, named for the city a few miles to the west (or had the city been named for the mountain?)

From one side, it was a humble, unassuming mountain. But were one to look at it from a different vantage point, one would find a bustling terraced city jutting out from the side of the mountain on long platforms, anchored to the ground many hundreds of feet below by towering pillars of metal and stone. Thin, glittering cables spanned from the mountainside city to the sprawling town nestled in the grassy foothills of the mountain.

The city and town clinging to Mount Ebott were unlike any other cities or towns on Earth. The vast majority of their inhabitants were not human.

Alucard eyed the dark shadow of the mountain with Clint Eastwood-esque squint and the slightest hint of a suspicious scowl. His pale, spidery fingernails rapped the dashboard impatiently as the officer in the border kiosk looked over his passport. This officer manned—or was it monstered?—its post like a guard dog, mainly because it was, in more ways than one, a guard dog. It wrinkled its snout as it held the man’s passport up to its eyes, bringing it closer, then farther, then closer again, and doing this for a while.

“Genya Arikado?” the guard dog inquired.

He nodded. “Yes.”

The dog squinted at the passport yet again for what seemed like an interminably long time. Next to Alucard in the driver’s seat of their rented sedan, Yoko clucked her tongue impatiently. Alucard glanced at the kiosk and noticed an ashtray filled with the half-burnt remains of… dog treats?

The guard dog handed the passport back to Alucard, who pocketed it. The guard leaned over and addressed the woman. “May I see your passport?”

The woman handed over her passport, and the process repeated. “Yoko Belnades?”

“That’s me.”

The dog looked over the two of them. “Anything to declare?”

“I declare,” Yoko said, “that you are a very good boy.” Alucard shot a quick “can-you-not” glance her way.

“Don’t patronize me, ma’am,” the dog responded. But the gate rose anyway, and Alucard and Yoko were allowed to pass.

Yoko pulled out her phone. “I’m texting Mina. She’ll never guess where we are today.”

“Is that wise?”

“Come on. Mina’s a friend. And as far as she knows, we’re tourists.”

–

On the other side of the world, it was a cold, dreary, miserable day, and the rain poured down in sheets.  _ And here I am without an umbrella, _ thought Soma Cruz. He’d taken his first step off the bus—it hadn’t been raining when he’d gotten on—and realized, too late, that his umbrella was nowhere to be found.  _ Or a coat. _

That wasn’t quite true. He  _ did  _ have a coat, a magnificent white leather trench coat with a luxurious fur collar.  A nd in fact, he was holding it in his hands right now. It was currently hanging over the head of his best friend, Mina Hakuba, keeping her bright red hair if not dry, then at least moderately damp.

Soma hadn’t had any friends before he’d arrived in Japan for an intensive high school exchange and immersion program—or, at least, not any he knew in real life. But he’d run into Mina within a week after he’d disembarked from the plane and they’d hit it off immediately.

Mina may have been far more sociable than Soma—she was on first-name terms with every regular visitor to the shrine her parents looked after—but she devoured books of mythology just as voraciously as Soma did. She was also bilingual, and as a boy who’d been very self-conscious about his not-quite-mastery of Japanese and had pined for someone his own age to talk to more comfortably, Soma had found that to be a relief.

She was also quite cute, especially the way her brilliant ochre hair perfectly complimented her tawny skin, which Soma sometimes tried very hard not to acknowledge sometimes.

[ I could just  _ wear  _ the coat, ] said Mina as a torrent of water poured from a gutter overhead and went straight down Soma’s back.

[No, no. I insist. Besides,] said Soma, suppressing a deep involuntary shudder, [it doesn’t have a hood. Your hair would get… wet…] His voice trailed off as a commotion further up the sidewalk, at the side of the corner convenience store, caught his eye. A gaggle of young delinquents were crowding around… a pile of brown rags? No, there was a person under those rags.

The delinquents looked just as Japanese as anyone else in town, but they were taunting their victim in English.  “ _ What is this cowboy getup?” _

“ _Yo, the prairie’s thataway, pardner.”_

“ _I reckon your cattle rustlin’ days are over, Golden Oldie.”_

Sickening. Soma let his coat drop onto Mina’s head. [Excuse me for a moment.]

He walked up to the crowd. He could see the man in the gaps between the punks’ bodies. The poor guy wasn’t ancient, but he was definitely old, and it seemed he was trying very, very hard to ignore his tormentors. Soma grew more confident the closer he got. He was a full head taller than the shortest goon, and had a few inches on the taller one, whom he assumed was the leader.

Soma tapped him on the shoulder. The head goon (could you really be a  _ head _ goon, though?) turned around. He sized Soma up. “Get lost. And maybe get a refund for your haircut, Ringo.”

Soma decked him straight in the face. He had an almost puzzled look on his face before he slumped over and collapsed.

Soma took a hard look at the remaining goons. “Go on. Shoo.” He waved his hands at them. “Shoo.”

They looked a lot meaner and a lot less willing to back down than he’d expected. He thought one of them might have had a gun bulging from their jacket pocket.

 _[_ _Soma! Get out of there!_ _]_ Mina called out from behind him.

_ [ _ _ Mina!  _ _Now they know my name!_ _]_

_ [ _ _ Soma! Now they know  _ my _ name! _ _ ] _

The gun turned out to be a set of brass knuckles, which Soma was thankful for at first, but not quite as thankful when they bashed into his face. Luckily, he’d  _ almost  _ dodged the punk’s swinging fist and saved himself the brunt of the impact, although he did receive a nasty cut. Meanwhile, the knuckle-duster punk’s boot slid on the muddy, rain-slicked sidewalk, the momentum carrying him in an almost-graceful pirouette and sending his head into a brick wall. In the confusion, Soma managed to get a couple kidney punches in on the remaining delinquents.

Those who could still stand promptly turned tail and ran.  _“Fucking gaijin!”_ one shouted over his shoulder as he hurried away.

Soma knelt down in front of the old man. The stranger’s eyes peeked out from between the collar of his rain-sodden leather duster and the brim of his battered fedora. He offered the stranger his hand. “Hi, I’m Soma Cruz. Are you all right?”

–

Soma, Mina, and the mysterious stranger had set up camp in the corner of a nearly-empty fast food restaurant. Mina was pressing a small paper cup filled with ice on the cut across Soma’s cheek, while the stranger tore into a burger and fries.

“How long has it been since you’ve eaten?” Mina asked.

The stranger shrugged.

“What’s your name?” Soma asked.

The stranger swallowed. “Jay.” He took another bite. “I think.”

“You think…?”

“Well, I woke up one morning… and I thought, ‘hey, I think my name starts with a “J”,’” said the stranger. “Damned if I could remember the rest, though.”

“You don’t remember your name?” Mina asked.

“Haven’t since 1999.” J finished the burger. “I was…” He peered over at Soma. “I think I was about your age. How old’re you?”

“Seventeen.”

“Seventeen and your hair’s all white. What, did you see a ghost?”

“I’ll let that slide this time,” said Soma, crossing his arms.

“His hair’s always been that color,” said Mina.

J burst out laughing. “I’m so sorry, Soma, the kids at school must’ve been awful.”

“Wait—” Soma crunched the numbers. “You’re in your _fifties,_ and you haven’t known your own name for over thirty _years?”_ There was something existentially terrifying to Soma about J’s predicament. Spending over half your life not even knowing who you were, or who your parents were, or where any of your family was… let alone navigating your entire adult life with no last name, no ID or driver’s license, no credit history…

“It’s not so bad. I’m pretty handy, know a lot of languages, and odd jobs usually aren’t so hard to come by.” J coughed. “Usually.”

“Where do you live, J?” Images flashed through Soma’s mind of a grungy motel, or worse, an alley or a gutter.

Even worse, J shrugged.

“J, you have to have a roof over your head!” Mina gasped. “I’m sure there’s some extra lodgings at the shrine. We could put you up for a few weeks—until you get back on your feet.”

“The shrine?”

“The Hakuba Shrine, just outside of town,” Soma explained. “Mina’s parents take care of it.”

“Hakuba, eh…” There was a glimmer of recognition in J’s weary hazel eyes, and then it was gone.

Soma pulled Mina aside.  _[_ _ Are you sure about this? This guy could be anyone. He could be… you know, trouble. _ _ ] _

_ [ _ _ It’s the least I can do. You put  _ your _ life on the line for him. _ _ ] _

_ [ _ _ Yeah, but that was about the  _ _ principles. _ _ ] _

_ [ _ _ Besides, I’ve got  _ _ Miss Belnades _ _ and her friend to watch out for me. _ _ ] _

The government spooks? Soma had seen them creeping around the shrine every once in a blue moon. The pale, spindly man in particular, perennially clad in a black suit no matter the weather, sent shivers up Soma’s spine, reminding him of the stories of the “men in black”, mysterious so-called G-men with strange manners who would visit and intimidate alleged alien abductees. Apparently, he’d visited the shrine every year for about a decade.

Of course, Mina got along with the two of them extremely well, even the G-man who never seemed to age.

_ [ _ _ Yeah, if this guy’s an alien  _ _ warlord _ _ I’m sure  _ _ Doctor Who and his attractive companion _ _ will be able to  _ _ save you from him _ _. _ _ ] _

_ [ _ _ They’re good people, Soma. _ _ ] _

J loudly cleared his throat. [These old ears aren’t as bad as you think, kids.]

Mina’s cell phone buzzed. “Excuse me,” she said, pulling it out of her jacket. Her eyes brightened. “It’s Yoko! You’ll never guess where she is right now!”

_ Speak of the devil.  _ “Area 51?” Soma asked.

“No, she’s at that mountain with all the monsters in it…”

–

Eclipses in history often provoked wonder, awe, and panic among humans (although they could be easily predicted). And they could provoke other things as well—especially as the shadow of the moon passed over parts of the world where the walls separating the magic from the mundane.

Premonitions of the eclipse, small irrational events that passed almost without notice, flared up around the world in the days preceding the celestial event. In a small Massachusetts town that smelled strongly of fish, residents noticed foggy suction-cup marks on their windows in the morning. Tourists (not in full possession of their faculties) at Stonehenge swore that for an hour, the sun traveled from west to east instead of vise versa. At a small but carefully-watched shrine in Japan, a small brass bell split down the middle as if cleft in twain.

And on the mountain of monsters, a hole opened up in the universe, just large enough for someone to fall through.

Soft late-morning sunlight filtered in through the windows of the chapel, illuminating a small black coffin resting on the marble floor. The traditional elongated hexagon. Black lacquered wood, padded red velvet inside.

A tall caprine monster with snow-white fur and long, curved horns stood before the coffin, head bowed. Standing at just over six and a half feet (with the horns giving him a few extra inches), he resembled a cross between a goat and a lop-eared hare, with just a touch of wolfishness. His violet cloak hung from his shoulders as he laid a hand on the wood, tracing the contours of a scarlet heart painted on the lid.

It was here that Asriel Dreemurr, young king of the rather plainly-named Monster Kingdom, or Kingdom of Mount Ebott, stood to pay his respects.

This had been Chara’s coffin. When they’d died, the kingdom had been despondent, and no one had been quite sure what to do. Their adoptive parents—Asriel’s parents—had decided to imitate human burial customs as best they could.

The coffin was empty, of course, because Asriel had taken his adopted sibling’s body, brought it through the Barrier, and laid it to rest in their hometown. It had not gone over well with the town’s human inhabitants.

Then he’d died. Violently. His childhood had been a tragic legend—a kind and innocent child who’d died within a day of his closest friend. Every child on the mountain learned it in school.

Then his mind had been reconstituted as a soulless, sadistic flower for a while—it had been an awkward time in his life. They didn’t mention that in the history textbooks.

And then he’d been brought back to life—more or less properly—and been reunited with his family.

After that was an adventurous adolescence, involving a battle to the death with Chara’s evil doppelganger from another universe. (That wouldn’t go into the textbooks either.) More often than not he woke up in the morning and wondered how he’d made it to his sixteenth birthday, let alone his own coronation.

Asriel sat down in front of the coffin. “Hi, Chara. It’s me.” He sighed. “I won’t bother you with the boring things this week, so I won’t have much to say. All the good stuff is coming up. The eclipse especially. That’s gonna be great. I’ve got a speech all written up for it.

“I’ve never seen an eclipse. Not even a partial one. Nobody else in the kingdom has, either. Well, except for some of the humans who’ve moved in. We’re having a big festival and everything. The businesses love it. Everyone’s selling little sun and moon tchotchkes, and the bakeries have eclipse-themed donuts, and everyone and their mother has a pair of viewing goggles. I’m taking the whole day off. It’s gonna be like a little vacation.

“I haven’t had a holiday in years. To be honest, I’m not really sure what I’ll do with myself—”

The lid of the coffin shuddered, jerking Asriel’s mind back to reality. Had somebody been hiding in the coffin? Impossible—there was only one door leading to this room, and it was locked at all hours. Asriel had the only key.

He’d been doing this every week for almost five years, on his therapist’s recommendation. There were plenty of times when he’d expected Chara to respond. They never did, of course, because there was nobody in that coffin, and besides, they were dead twice, maybe even three times over.

Asriel got up and crept toward the coffin. The lid shuddered again. He reached out for it. His mind was racing. Had someone crept into this room? The ventilation shafts were scarcely large enough for a mouse; the windows didn’t open at all. This was impossible.

The coffin stayed still for a very long time. Asriel counted the seconds pass. Motes of dust swirled in the sunbeams, but other than that, the ersatz grave was as still and as quiet as… a grave.

After gathering his wits about him, Asriel ran his fingers along the seams of the coffin’s lid, took a deep breath, and lifted it up.

There was a human in the coffin, about his age. Gaunt, androgynous, with pale skin and shoulder-length reddish-brown hair. Their hands were folded across their chest, clasped around a gold heart-shaped locket.

He had to be hallucinating. He must have been under too much pressure—he’d spent a week negotiating border security and dealing with business leaders who’d been threatening to take their businesses elsewhere due to a recent 0.01% income tax increase for high earners he’d championed, and a whole host of tiny fires he had to put out because Parliament spent so much time squabbling…

The human in the coffin stirred. Their eyes snapped open. Their bright red eyes. They looked straight at Asriel and screamed.

So did Asriel.

Chara pulled themselves upright, their chest heaving, their face stricken with equal amounts terror and relief. “Oh, god. Thank god. I couldn’t get it open on my own. I thought I’d been buried alive in my sleep!”

“Ch— _Chara?”_

Chara’s eyes blazed. “That’s _Your Majesty_ Chara to you.” They rose to their feet. They wore a sharp formal ensemble that looked desperately in need of (at the very least) a good ironing, a brilliant violet waistcoat and bowtie paired with a matte black pencil skirt and leggings, all slightly rumpled. On their blouse’s collar was an enamel pin emblazoned with the triangular Delta Rune, a symbol of the Dreemurr dynasty. They crossed their arms. “And you have incurred my—”

They then squinted, cocking their head like a confused dog. “Eyepatch…?” A flash of recognition softened their glare. “Holy hell. You’re _Asriel.”_ Chara clapped their hands together. “Remember me? It’s me, Chara, from the other timeline! Oh, Asriel, it’s been so long!”

Chara stepped toward Asriel.  They were only a few inches shorter than him—not counting Asriel’s horns. (Compared to Asriel’s parents, who’d towered over anyone and everyone at seven and eight feet, Asriel was a bit of a runt.) “ I can’t believe it’s really  _you._ Gosh, you’ve gotten tall. I bet you’re the  _ king _ now.” They poked Asriel in the chest,  as if they needed to assure themselves he was real and not an apparition . Asriel  would have done the same were he not frozen in shock.

“I, uh,” Asriel responded, trying frantically to make his brain work again, “like your waistcoat.”

Chara fluttered their eyelashes. “Pretty stylish, huh?” They walked in a slow semicircle around Asriel, taking in the tiny chapel. Their eyes centered on the pine box they’d emerged from. They recognized it right away,  and their brow furrowed . “Were you—were you  _ talking _ to my  _ coffin _ , Asriel?”

“I-it’s a…” Asriel cringed. “It’s therapeutic. Like keeping a diary.”

Chara held their arms out. “Well, now you’ve got the real thing to pour your heart out to! Goodness, Asriel, have I missed you!”

“Y-you’re real, right?”

“Pfft. Of _course_ I’m real. Not a ghost, or phantom, or robot, clone, or simulacrum.”

“And you’re not just pretending to be _you_ to further some… nefarious goal?”  That had happened before. Asriel was wary of it.

“Nefarious? _Me?”_ Chara smiled. Asriel didn’t. They sidled up to him and threw an arm over his shoulders. “I guess I just wished so hard, I ended up here. Now how about we head home, get some breakfast—”

“Lunch—”

“Lunch,” Chara corrected themselves. “Sounds good. I’m starved half to _death.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You know that saying, "When God closes a door, He opens a window?" Well, sometimes that door is the lid of a coffin, and that window is the lid of another coffin.


	2. An Unexpected Detour, Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Asriel has lunch. Soma has a midnight snack.

The northern side of the monster city of Newest Home was colloquially known as “Little Humantown.” The kingdom was very integrated, but many human citizens clustered in this area. It was known for its restaurants: monsters loved human food, its dazzling breadth of cultures and styles, its characteristic heaviness that monster food (crafted of equal parts matter and magic) lacked; many of the kingdom’s first human subjects had come to set up restaurants and ply their culinary trade to a populace eager to try new things.

It was Asriel’s favorite part of the city, and he made sure to let Chara know. They’d taken the bus there—much to Chara’s bemusement (Asriel was exceedingly proud of the kingdom’s public transit system)—and were now perusing the rows of restaurants on foot. “There’s a _great_ Lebanese restaurant there—been going to it for almost fifteen years. Met my first crush there, actually…”

“Oh?” Chara smiled. “Is there a queen or king-consort I should know about now?”

“We’re just friends now.” And between studies and work, he hadn’t had much time for friends these past few years.

“Ouch.”

“There’s nothing wrong with being friends with someone!” Asriel said, a bit more defensively than he’d intended. He’d had this line of conversation with his mother over and over again since he’d been seventeen. He changed the subject. “What about you?”

“Well,” said Chara, “I’m the Monarch of Monster Mountain—no, that’s not what we call it, it’s just for alliterative effect.”

Asriel then realized that, while he and Chara were the same age, yes, Chara’s birthday was in August, making them older than him by a scant few months. It was a moot point because, if Asriel recalled correctly, he’d never come back to life in Chara’s so-called “Earth Two.”

“It’s tough, Azzy. But I’m sure you understand all too well how tough it is.” Their red eyes sparkled in a way that stirred some not-entirely-pleasant memories from Asriel’s youth as they threw their arm around their long-lost brother. “You don’t know how long I’ve needed this vacation.”

–

Alucard and Yoko had entered the north side of the city, officially known as the “Restaurant District,” but known to its inhabitants as “Little Humantown,” which struck Yoko as somewhat patronizing. The two visitors had parked the car and were en route to the nearest hotel, sparsely-packed travel-sized suitcases in hand. Within a few blocks they’d passed by a dizzying array of aromas from almost every corner of the world.

“Well, we won’t want for food here,” Yoko noted.

Alucard bumped into her. He was staring at his feet as he walked in long, loping strides, occasionally halting in mid-step as though he’d just realized he was about to trip over his own feet. “P-pardon me.” He put his hand to his forehead.

“You all right, Aluc—Arikado?” She knew he was ill at ease in this place—he was still, as far as she knew, wrapping his head around the idea of monsters who weren’t trying to disembowel him—but he seemed almost physically ill. “Are you dehydrated?”

Alucard jammed his hand into his jacket pocket. “S-so to speak. Desanguinated.”

 _Oh, no,_ Yoko though. _Not here._ Then she looked around, seeing denizens of all shapes and sizes, and one that just seemed to be a cloud of gas in a suit and tie, and decided that maybe they wouldn’t stand out so much when the man did what he was about to do.

Alucard pulled an entire bulb of garlic out of his pocket, opened his mouth, and bit into the garlic as if it were a fresh apple. He stood there, in the middle of the sidewalk, in a pitch-black suit in the middle of a sunny spring day, furiously chewing whole raw cloves of garlic, flaky bits of the garlic bulb’s skin peeling away from his lips. He closed his eyes in relief.

“All better?” Yoko asked. While he was a _dhampyr_ rather than a full-blooded vampire (pun intended), Alucard still occasionally felt the overpowering thirst for blood all vampires felt. Fortunately, half-vampires could keep the cravings at bay with garlic (which was vastly overrated as a vampire defense mechanism, but could still make full-blooded vampires violently ill).

She looked around. No one had seemed to think the two of them odd. In a city full of oddities, a five-hundred-year-old half-vampire and his human assistant/babysitter barely stood out.

Alucard picked out a few more cloves and popped them into his mouth like nicotine gum. “Not quite.”

–

Within five minutes of being seated, Alucard had already finished off the entire basket of garlic breadsticks. This restaurant’s food was so bad that Yoko could feel every friend she had in Rome screaming out in pain as she sampled the first of the newly-arrived basket of breadsticks: garlicky enough to ruin any date, and greasy enough to ensure a very bad case of heartburn afterward.

Alucard’s perfect composure had returned—he’d be set for a few days, at least. He steepled his fingers and leaned over the table, staring past Yoko.

The waiter came by with two enormous bowls of pasta (they couldn’t just munch on free bottomless baskets of breadsticks, after all). Yoko was about to dig in when something—or rather, someone—caught her eye.

“ _Alucard,”_ she whispered. _“Over there—is that the_ king?”

–

At Chara’s insistence, Asriel had settled on a cozy Italian restaurant with all-you-can-eat breadsticks. Within five minutes Chara had polished off an entire basket of them. The last time they’d eaten so voraciously, it had been after Chara had gotten lost in the glittering caverns of Waterfall for three days and had nearly worried the King and Queen to death.

Asriel was no stranger to working so hard that he forgot to eat. He’d skip two or sometimes three meals a day if Parliament and other government dealings were particularly taxing—such as when they had to agree on budgets. Chara must have been pushing themselves just as hard on their Earth.

“That’s quite a story, brother.” Chara picked at the crumbs. “So… lemme see if I’ve got this right. An evil version of me from an evil universe traveled through time and space, possessed my body in the past, tortured you—my god, what’s in these breadsticks? They’re the best I’ve ever had—stole our dear, lovely adopted sibling Frisk’s body, cloned you and tried to steal _that_ body, and tried to murder the planet. I’m surprised you didn’t try to kill me on sight.”

 _Ten years ago, maybe._ Asriel decided not to voice that thought.

“I’ll admit, I don’t have a story that exciting,” Chara said.

“I’d like to hear it anyway.”

They waved their hand noncommittally. “Maybe later.”

The server arrived with another basket of garlic breadsticks, and Chara, their attention diverted, eyed them just as greedily as the first basket. But before they could dig in, a shot rang out.

Chara froze. Asriel whirled in the direction the shot had come from. A gaggle of men occupying the lobby. Men with black masks over their faces and rifles Asriel was certain weren’t legally available for purchase in the kingdom—one of them had fired a warning shot into the ceiling.

Five of them in total. Two guarding the door. One barking orders. Two more pulling the restaurant’s staff and patrons to the floor.

Asriel stood up. “Excuse me, gentlemen.”

The leader pointed his gun right at him, and Asriel took a hurried step back. Asriel remembered the day he’d gotten his eye shot out—he’d been fourteen. He remembered the arm wrapped around his little chest, the gun next to his head: when it had gone off—the shot went wild—the muzzle flash had blinded him, the heat from the barrel had burned him, the sound from the gun drowned out all others; he had only been able to _feel_ himself screaming.

Asriel held up his hands, palms outward, trying to keep his voice calm. “Put the gun down, sir.”

One of the men nudged another one. “Holy shit. I thought the Prime Minister would be here.”

Of course. Prime Minister Papyrus, an avid fan of pastas of all shapes and sizes, came here almost every week at around this time to inspect the rigatoni. The men must have come for him. But today, they had caught a bigger fish. “What are you here for? Money?” Asriel asked. He already knew the answer.

The leader laughed, and Asriel felt a hand on his shoulder and a pistol in his back as he was forced to his knees. There _weren’t_ five in total. “You.”

A seventh crook had forced Chara out of their chair as well, with a gun held to their head. _“Who’re you?”_ he asked.

“I-I-I’m just a plucky young street urchin,” Chara stammered. “Shine your shoes, guv’nor? It’ll only run you a shilling.”

“What are your demands?” Asriel continued. “What do you want? What do you _need?”_ He went over the possibilities in his head. If they were holding him hostage, they must have a political grievance, he figured. “Don’t wait for the police to come. Tell _me_ your demands.”

If he were younger, he’d have probably beaten these guys unconscious by now. Over the years he’d learned that a king required a more diplomatic tact. But if it came to blows, he wouldn’t lose.

The leader lowered their rifle just a tad. Now it was pointed at Asriel’s groin instead of his heart, which was still, overall, an improvement. The hostage-taker behind him let go, pulling away the gun at his back. “You have three US civil rights activists in your country, awaiting extradition. We want them offered sanctuary and amnesty.”

“Can they not get a fair trial back home?”

All of the hostage-takers laughed. Bitterly. It was a more enlightening answer than “no” would have been.

“I understand how desperate you must be. I bet you’ve tried everything else. But you’ve put me in a difficult situation,” Asriel admitted, slowly standing up and keeping his hands raised. “Not to mention it’s hard to break an extradition treaty, if we have one… if I give into your demands, everyone will think they can get whatever they want from me by pointing a gun at me. That’s, um… not very good for political discourse.”

The hostage-taker raised his gun again.

“But actually—you can’t just shoot me,” said Asriel, a bit faster, “because then you’d have no hostage and no leverage, and you’d all be dead or in prison—your friends included. So,” he continued, “despite all your guns, you have no interest in killing or hurting anybody.” He took a few steps forward, the leader’s rifle still trained on him. “Besides, your bullets might not be enough to kill me, as I’m sure you all know, and then I’d be pretty mad.”

The men all looked at each other and, one by one, dropped their guns. Asriel thanked his lucky stars they’d listened to reason. Someone could have gotten hurt.

–

Alucard and Yoko quietly excused themselves from the restaurant in all the commotion, although Alucard made certain to leave a crisp hundred-dollar bill on the table. Getting past the police cordon was easy enough: all it took was standing tall, walking purposefully, and acted like you belonged wherever you were and knew exactly where you were going. You’d be surprised at the number of places in the world where that was all it took to go anywhere you want.

“Well,” Yoko said, as the two passed the last emplacement of Royal Guards, “that certainly was the King of Monsters.”

“Not quite the impression I thought he would make,” Alucard admitted. King Asriel had, to him, the look of a warrior—not due to his rather fearsome eyepatch, but rather the tension he carried in his body. Muscles curled like serpents waiting to strike, a sharp and alert gleam in the eye. He’d seen those qualities in countless men, good and evil alike, over the centuries. Anyone who had these things either had the power to take life in an instant, or was doing an exceptionally good job of pretending.

“Did you expect a bloodbath?”

“I wouldn’t have been surprised.” But this kingdom was full of surprises already, and the biggest was yet to come.

–

“ _What?”_ Alucard stood in the middle of his hotel room, clutching his phone so tightly the screen nearly shattered. He could scarcely believe what he was hearing.

“ _You’ve been reassigned,”_ the voice of the Agency’s director Ephram Barlowe repeated to him, tinny through the phone’s speaker. _“You and Ms. Belnades will observe the eclipse from Mount Ebott.”_

“But the shrine is the only—”

“ _I know it has personal significance to you, Mr. Arikado. And that is precisely why we have decided to place the two of you on leave for now. Do not worry—we have top men looking into the Hakuba Shrine.”_

 _Top men?_ The gall of the Director! _“I_ am _your top men,”_ Alucard hissed through gritted teeth.

“ _I will brook no dissent, Mr. Arikado. The decision of Council is final. Solomon Graves and his team will deal with_ _the question of_ _Dracula’s successor.”_

 _Solomon Graves…?_ Alucard pondered where he’d heard that name before, and recalled it belonged to the red-haired man who occasionally woke him up. _Top men indeed._ Director Barlowe hung up on Alucard, and the phone went silent. He felt as though his legs had been cut out from under him.

He’d been there, over three decades ago—at the Hakuba Shrine. The sky had been black, the sun a perfect ring overhead.

_The wind howled as Dracula’s castle hovered over the shrine, shaped like a cancerous growth of masonry and iron clinging to the air. Its tallest spire stretched toward the sun, as if caught in its gravitational pull, and shattered, bricks and stone and wood flying up into the glittering band in the sky. The castle shook itself apart, its debris falling upward and vanishing into the black hole in the sky._

_Julius. He’d been right behind Alucard. Where was he?_ _Could he have fallen so far behind_ _?_

_Alucard clung to his cloak, whipped by the biting cold mountain air, as he watched the castle vanish, piece by piece, as it became one with the celestial phenomenon overhead. With bated breath, clenched teeth, and unblinking eyes, he held vigil over Castle Dracula._

_When the last brick of the castle dwindled into the heavens, Alucard fell to his knees. The man at his side doffed his cap, holding it solemnly over his heart as he turned his eyes down to the ground._

“ _Julius Belmont,” Alucard whispered to the heavens, “_ _Julius._ _Forgive me, my friend.” When next the eclipse passed over this spot, and the way to Dracula’s castle opened again, he promised, he would be there._

There was a knock on the door, snapping Alucard out of his reverie. _“Arikado? It’s me, Yoko.”_

“Come in.”

The door swung open and Yoko flopped onto one of the room’s two beds. “I don’t suppose you know why all my credit cards have been frozen?”

 _They’ve stranded us here,_ Alucard realized. “I suppose mine have been as well.” Without the Agency’s financial backing, neither of them could afford an unsanctioned last-minute flight from North America to Japan. _But why are they so intent on keeping us away from the Hakuba Shrine?_

Alucard filled his companion in on his conversation with the Director.

“So basically, we’ve been burned.”

Alucard nodded. “I do feel particularly insulted, yes.”

“Well,” Yoko sighed, “I _had_ been praying for a vacation. Can’t say God doesn’t have a sense of humor.” Yoko opened her suitcase and started piling its contents on the bed. “At least we’re stranded in a tourist-friendly place.” She pulled a stoppered glass vial from the suitcase and rolled it around in her palms. “This isn’t yours, is it, Alucard?”

Alucard took it from her hands and peered at it. The vial was filled with what looked like blood. He shook his head. “I’ve never seen that before.” He pulled out the cork, dislodging it with a little _pop_ like a champagne bottle and raising it to his nose. The overwhelming coppery smell was unmistakable.

Alucard didn’t carry human blood around with him, although Yoko had brought up the idea as an alternative to garlic to manage his cravings, mainly because it caused a lot of trouble at airports.

“So someone planted a vial of blood on us?”

Blood was extremely potent, especially as a conduit for magic. Alucard suspected it could function as a low-tech tracking device—a bug. “Perhaps the Agency wants to keep tabs on our movements.”

The vial jittered between his forefinger and thumb, as if it had a life of its own, and leaped out of his grasp. It fell to the floor, spreading an impossibly-large pool of blood into the off-white carpeting. The puddle wriggled, as if alive, and congealed into a humanoid shape, transforming into skin, hair, fabric.

A man, some sort of homunculus, stood up in front of Alucard. He had a dazed, faraway look in his sunken eyes, the sockets so gray they looked bruised. His hand was red, red as his suit, and slick with blood that dripped steadily from his fingers onto the pavement, leaving dark blotches behind. A spike of congealed blood shot out from his red right hand, hardening into a wicked, resin-like blade, and thinner curved spines erupted from his wrist and traced thin arcs, like a double helix or a caduceus, around the blade.

As the blood homunculus lunged forward, Alucard realized how disadvantaged he was. His human guise, taken as a condition of his employment with the Agency, limited his supernatural abilities. What little dark powers of his bloodline he had left were further suppressed by the garlic still in his system, leaving him with few options to defend against the creature.

The red-suited man’s congealed blood blade whistled through the air, impossibly sharp, severing the bottom of Alucard’s tie. As he stumbled backward, Alucard’s hand brushed the handle’s suitcase, and he grabbed it and pulled it in front of his chest as a makeshift shield. The man in the red suit cut through its leathery hide, spilling Alucard’s clothes over the floor, and dislodging a short sword he had kept hidden away in a false bottom in the suitcase.

Yoko thrust out her hand at the attacker, curling in her index finger. An arcane symbol inscribed on her fingernail completed the broken circle inscribed on her palm, loosing a jet of fire at the man in red. With the homunculus distracted, Alucard dove to the floor, grabbed his sword, and thrust it into the attacker’s chest.

The homunculus staggered backward, toppling over onto Alucard’s bed. As he wrenched the sword from the red-suited man’s chest, Alucard narrowly avoided a pressurized jet of blood that spewed from the wound like water from a garden hose, splattering over the ceiling. The homunculus melted, hair, skin, clothes and all, leaving a deep crimson stain across the bed.

Blood from the ceiling splatter dripped onto Alucard’s black suit. _We will need to tip the cleaning staff a_ _small_ _fortune,_ he thought.

“Bloody hell,” said Yoko. “I’m spending the rest of the day at the library.”

“Why? To check out the latest in vampire romance fiction?” Alucard had caught her reading one of those rags once and refused to let her forget it.

“No, to do research,” the witch answered. “There’s something weird about this place.”

The whole room stank of copper. To a man like him, the stench of blood could prove incredibly distracting. Alucard went to the window and cracked it open to let the fresh air in, startling a blackbird perched on the sill. “Besides that its prime minister has no flesh on his bones and its king is the albino doppelganger of Baphomet?”

“Weirder.”

Alucard continued to rummage through the remains of his suitcase. Where there was one bug—or rather, a murderous man made out of blood—there was bound to be another. Sure enough, he found another vial hidden inside a rolled-up pair of socks. Gingerly, he lifted it up, and then he walked into the bathroom, lifted the toilet seat, and rolled up his sleeve.

Suspecting the blood-homunculus would activate upon exposure to air, Alucard drove his hands into the bowl, fully submerging the little vial, and uncorked it. The blood bloomed outward, quickly turning the rest of the water pink. Seized with revulsion—although, to be fair, he’d had to put his hands in far worse places before—Alucard flushed, watched fresh, uncolored water fill the bowl as the blood swirled down the drain, and immediately started scrubbing his hands in the adjacent sink.

From the other side of the bathroom door, Yoko snickered at him. He was, he feared, never going to live that moment down.

–

Soma stood in the aisle of a 7-11 in the middle of the night, shoveling packets of instant ramen and instant coffee into his arms. Instant ramen, instant coffee, and energy drink shots—the perennial diet of the academically-inclined. Real food, and drinks that wouldn’t make his heart explode, would have to wait until after the upcoming college entry exams.

 _I could’ve signed up to live in a country with lower academic standards,_ Soma thought to himself as he brought his findings up to the register, _but no…_

If there was one thing Soma was thankful for, it was having a 24/7 convenience store two blocks away from his house (or, rather, his host family’s house). Of course, there were a lot of other things he was thankful for, but if he had to choose, 7-11 would be one of his first choices.

He popped open the energy shot and downed it as soon as he stepped outside. Sickly sweet, like cough medicine, but thinner and not as difficult to choke down, with an obnoxious synthetic-mango taste. That would keep him going until sunrise.

It was a warm spring night (going on early morning) but the wind was cool and sharp. The streets were nearly empty save for passing cars, a far cry from the eternal bustle of the big city. The sky above was pitch black, though—even the suburban lights were enough to drown out the stars.

The Hakuba Shrine was just a bus ride away, further out in the sticks. From there, he would have been able to pick out dozens of constellations.

Soma put his headphones on and picked a tune for the walk home.

_Sundown dazzling day_

_Gold through my eyes_

_But my eyes turned within_

_Only see_

_Starless and bible black…_

A block away, he reached a crosswalk, and saw a strange man on the other side of the road. A man in a red coat and peaked cap, illuminated by the streetlight. His hand, hanging limply at his side, was covered in something dark and slick and dripping.

Soma pulled his headphones off. [Hey!] he called out. [Are you all right?]

The crossing light changed, and the man in red sprinted across the street. Something long and sharp sprang out from the man’s sleeve, catching the light from the street lamps and throwing long shadows into the night.

Soma cried out, but no one was around to hear him. The man in red grabbed Soma, knocking him over onto the hard concrete. For a brief instant, everything went black, and when Soma’s sight returned, the world was spinning around him. Soma struggled, but the man in red had him pinned down, and raised the spiny blade attached to his right arm overhead. He didn’t know why—but this stranger was trying to _kill_ him!

Soma kneed the red-coated man in the stomach. The man in red brought his blade down, but Soma jerked away at the last minute, and the blade drove itself into the concrete right where Soma’s head had been mere moments before. He rolled out of his attacker’s grip and swung his bag at his head. Packets of instant coffee went flying as the man in red pulled his hand-blade out of the ground.

Soma reached into his pocket, pulled out his pen knife and flipped it open. It wasn’t much against a sword, but it was all he had on him.

The tip of the man’s sword buried itself in Soma’s gut, and he felt the spreading warmth across his abdomen immediately. His heart pounded, each new beat causing a new torrent of blood to pour out of his body. He clutched at his assailant’s arm as a black void began to crowd the edges of his vision.

He could hear his own breathing and feel his pulse as if he’d never heard or felt them before—with blood pouring onto his jeans, deep down he knew that he might never feel the thump of his heart or the sound of his breath again.

As his vision blurred, Soma noticed a tattoo on the man’s neck. A circle, with bolts of lightning like spokes in a wheel. Studying occult symbols was a hobby, and Soma recognized this one right away. The Black Sun.

The eclipse. He was going to miss the eclipse. The first full solar eclipse over the Hakuba Shrine in over thirty years, and Mina wanted to watch it with him.

Soma felt the knife slide out of his blood-slicked fingers, but tightened his grip at the last second, filled with a new resolve. He jabbed the knife into the red-coated man’s arm with a force he hadn’t thought himself capable of. The man’s fingers spasmed and the blade melted away. He stumbled backward, and Soma, possessed by some mad berserker rage, pressed onward, catching the man in the red coat across the throat and severing his jugular. Blood sprayed out from his neck, and he melted before Soma’s eyes, hair, suit, and all, leaving nothing but a pool of blood.

A shining red-orange orb flew out of the puddle. It traced an arc in the air, leaving flickering sparks in its wake as it flew at Soma. He fell to his knees, weakly raising his arms in defense, but it passed right through him, sinking into his chest.

All of a sudden, he felt lighter—free of pain. The wound in his gut stopped throbbing, and the waves of pain and numbness running through his body vanished as an intoxicating electric current ran up his spine. He felt lightheaded. The hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He felt lightning buzzing at the tips of his fingers, a fire burning beneath his skin. He could hear himself laughing. He felt—like he’d never felt before, better than he’d ever felt.

Soma’s eyes rolled back, and with one final spasm, he passed out.

Further down the road, unbeknownst to Soma, a man in a long red coat observed the scene from afar, took some notes, and slunk back into the shadows.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soma loves prog rock because I thought having him exclusively listen to music that's old enough to be pulling Social Security checks by 2035 would make him even more of a goofball than he already is in canon.
> 
> You know, if you listen to Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" backwards while reading this fic you'll notice some really creepy coincidences. For example, you can hear the phrase "Help I've Been Stabbed By a Man Made of Blood" around the point at which Soma gets stabbed by a man made of blood.


	3. An Unexpected Detour, Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Chara comes home. Yoko makes a discovery. Soma makes a new enemy.

The evening sky overhead was a tapestry of violet and orange, and the setting sun threw amber sunbeams across the mountain. Yoko Belnades found herself trudging through the densely-forested west side of the mountain, looking for all the world like any other hiker searching for an _authentic experience_ with nature, with two L-shaped sticks in her hands. She’d taken a look at some books in the local library, and now she had a theory that needed testing.

Eventually, she came across a chain-link fence separating the woods from the observatory grounds. The building was a tall dome of tinted, polarized glass on a turntable, with a long, cylindrical telescope (its mirror must have been three meters across) mounted on a rail running on the dome’s equator. It was beautiful, and without a doubt _somebody’s_ passion project.

The dowsing rods jerked in her hands, one pointing straight toward the observatory, the other pointing in the opposite direction. Knowing how dowsing worked, this was either an underground water pipeline, or a ley line.

Ley lines were a network of magical energy running across the planet. To use a modern analogy, they were power lines… or rather, world-spanning broadband Internet cables. They would span between locations with great paranormal energy—shrines, churches, ancient megaliths, burial grounds. These locations were points where two or more ley lines met and intersected. Much like the borders of nations or tectonic plates, ley lines turned the world into a patchwork quilt.

There were a few other places in the world where the ley lines met in the same pattern as they did at the Hakuba Shrine. Mount Ebott, like the shrine, was a place where beings of incredible magical power had once been sealed beyond the realm of normal space and time. If Yoko was right, the observatory would behave the same way the shrine did when the eclipse passed overhead—albeit twelve hours later.

In other words… it would bring whoever was inside straight to Castle Dracula.

She needed to get closer. Yoko knelt down, tamping down the dirt in front of the fence. Drawing a needle and first-aid kit from her backpack, she pricked her thumb, watching a bright red orb of blood well up.

Yoko pressed her perforated thumb into the dirt and traced a circle, then drew a complex sigil from memory inside the circle. She stepped back to admire her handiwork, opening the first-aid kit and gritting her teeth as she applied stinging disinfectant and water to the wound and stuck a band-aid on it. She wondered if any witches like her ancestor Sypha had ever gotten infections from performing earth magic back in the old days before things like penicillin. _When they said magic had a price, maybe they were referring to gangrene,_ Yoko thought.

The dirt around the magic circle bubbled and churned like boiling water, and sank abruptly, as though somebody had deflated tons of dirt and rock beneath it. A rush of wind blew past Yoko, rustling the leaves on the trees around her and startling a flock of blackbirds as air flooded the vacuum that had previously been solid earth. An earthen staircase and tunnel formed under the fence, with an exit hole just a few feet away.

The dowsing rods tugged Yoko around the observatory, in a path she’d trod once before halfway across the world.

She was right! Brimming with excitement, she set down the dowsing rods and made a call to her counterpart. “Arikado, it’s Yoko. You’re gonna love this…”

–

As far as palatial estates went, the New Royal Palace was not particularly splendid. The right word for it was cozy—a small, homely courtyard; a densely-packed garden with narrow trails winding through carrots and cucumbers and golden flowers; and a rather small castle that was very much devoid of cavernous antechambers or high-vaulted, arched ceilings. There were no exotic rugs adorning the floor or multi-million-dollar works of art hanging on the walls; no gold, no ivory _(especially_ no ivory—Asriel found the trade abhorrent).

The less money Asriel spent on his home, he figured, the more the government could spend on things that were _useful._ A lot of his subjects had objected at first, but he was king, and he had the final say in the matter.

“Looks great, pal,” Chara commented, weakly giving Asriel a thumbs-up.

Asriel shrugged. “I’m sure it’s nothing compared to what Mom and Dad have in your universe.”

Although he didn’t show it, saying that hurt. It hurt to acknowledge that not only was Asriel’s father dead in this timeline—which he couldn’t help but think of as the “real world”—but that he was alive in a different timeline, one that excepting the visitor walking beside him felt more like a dream than an alternate reality.

The door swung open. On the other side of it stood the former Queen of Monsters. Asriel’s mother, Toriel Dreemurr. Her eyes, though ringed with gray behind her spectacles, sparkled at the sight of Asriel and his companion.

“Asriel! My goodness, you’re actually coming home tonight. And you’ve brought a friend!”

Chara suppressed a snicker. “Wow, Asriel—you still live with your _mom?”_

 _“_ _She lives with_ __me,”__ he clarified. 

“Who is this sharp dresser?” Toriel asked. “Asriel, you could get some tips from them.”

“This is, uh…” Asriel wondered how his mother would react.

Chara held up the heart-shaped locket between two fingers and wiggled it.

Toriel put her hand to her heart, instantly recognizing that piece of jewelry. _“No,”_ she whispered in hushed disbelief. 

“Mom, this is Chara,” Asriel said, gesturing at his guest. “Not ours, from another universe,” he hastily added.

Normally, one would find it a hard tale to believe. But Toriel had seen and believed stranger and more shocking things in her long, long life.

“It’s a long story,” Asriel non-explained, as he didn’t even know it himself. “May we come in for tea?”

Toriel took a moment to collect herself. “Oh, of course!” She shepherded Asriel and his guest through the door, pausing to give Chara a great, big hug. They stood stiff as a board for a second before gingerly reciprocating. “And of course, you’ll both stay for dinner, right?” she added.

“Well,” Chara said as they delicately extricated themselves from their mother’s embrace, “I don’t wish to impose, and I’m sure there are plenty of fine restaurants out there…”

“Nonsense!” Toriel clapped her paws. “I am retired, my child—”

“I’m twenty-nine,” Chara pointed out.

“—and I have plenty of time on my hands to cook. Tell me, have you developed a taste for snails yet?”

“Not yet. Is your office in here?” Chara asked Asriel.

Asriel shook his head. “No, I don’t bring my work home with me.”

“No, Asriel likes to bring his home to work. He once lived out of Parliament Hall for a month,” Toriel told them. “It was all over the papers a few years back.”

“Don’t believe everything you read in the _Mount Ebott Times,”_ he snapped defensively, mostly to look like less of a workaholic in front of Chara. He and his mother both knew that particular story had been completely true. His desk could fold out into a surprisingly-comfortable futon, thanks to Dr. Alphys’ engineering genius.

“No offense, but that sounds kind of dumb,” said Chara. “What if someone blows up Parliament?”

Toriel nodded approvingly. “You know, I have been saying that for _years_ and no one has taken my advice. Asriel, you should listen to your sibling. Make the praetors pass a law or something.”

–

Dinner went well into the evening, and Toriel had nothing but questions for her unexpected guest—what the other timeline was like, what hobbies and interest the two had picked up, were they good at school, had they gone to college, what were their friends up to, and had they found a special someone? Chara, though, was quite unforthcoming. They kept their answers short and vague. And with every cagey non-response, Asriel’s suspicion that they were keeping their true purposes secret from him grew.

They all watched the sunset together, and as the sky finally fell dark, Toriel proclaimed it to be bedtime and pointed Chara to a guest bedroom and rummaged for a spare toothbrush and pair of pajamas for them.

“You are welcome to stay the night as well,” she told Asriel. “Unless, of course,” she said with a wry smile, “you also have work to do in the office tonight.”

Asriel couldn’t resist guilt-tripping like that. And on top of that, he was just suspicious enough at this point that he didn’t want to leave home and leave his mother unprotected.

He stood in the empty dining room for a long while as his home grew dark and quiet, the faint aromas of dinner—a sort of escargot jambalaya Toriel had been experimenting with—still hanging in the air.

Toriel gently laid her paws on his shoulders from behind, and Asriel nearly leaped out of his skin. “It looks like something is troubling you, Asriel.”

Asriel nodded.

“If it is work-related, you can tell me about it. It was _my_ job once, you know.”

“Yes, I know.”

“I know all about it. Is it a belligerent diplomat? You remember that senator who gave us so much trouble all those years, don’t you?”

“Oh, _he’s_ not bothering me.”

“No, I am just saying I know how to deal with those types. Is it Senator Enright this time? Or a nosy reporter? Or is one of the members of your Parliament, um, ‘griefing’ you?”

Toriel always called it _“your_ Parliament.” Bringing representative government to the kingdom had been Asriel’s idea, although he had implemented it under duress. He’d been a bit of a micromanager and the stress had damn near killed him.

“Do you think it’s really _them?_ ” he asked. “Chara? Or another Zero?”

“What do _you_ think?”

“I don’t know.”

“But when you look at them, who do you see?”

Asriel mulled over his answer for a moment that seemed to last forever. Who _did_ he see? His sibling? Or the being that had stolen their eyes? “I’m not sure yet.”

“Well then,” she said, affixing her nightcap, “I trust you will make up your mind soon enough. You have never been known for indecision. And I know you will make the right choice. I love you.” She turned down the lights, but kept the desk lamp on, as she trundled up the stairs to her bedroom, bathing the living room in shadows and dull amber twilight.

“I love you too, Mom.” Asriel took a deep breath, prepared himself, and headed for one of the guest bedrooms. He knocked on the door. It creaked open of its own accord, and Asriel stepped inside.

The moon was bright and full outside, throwing rays of moonlight through the open window as the curtains fluttered in the gentle mountain breeze. A soft, dim light filled the bedroom, bringing with it a blanket of silence.

A small black USB thumb drive sat on the top of the dusty dresser. Asriel picked it up and, almost without thinking, slipped it into his pocket.

Chara lay on the bed. The sheets, tangled between their legs, only half-covered their sleeping body. Rather than resting their head on it, Chara held their pillow close to their chest, holding it in a tight embrace.

They looked soft—vulnerable. Almost like a child again. Asriel tugged on the pillow and carefully pulled it from Chara’s grip. They muttered something unintelligible in their sleep as Asriel lifted up their head and slid the pillow beneath it.

Chara’s red eyes snapped open and their hand lashed out, grabbing Asriel’s wrist. They looked right at him, but not _at_ him—rather, _through_ him. As if Asriel were invisible. _“Why should a dog, a horse, a rat, have life,”_ they hissed, _“and thou no breath at all?”_

“Chara?”

Chara blinked, focused their eyes on his, and but still seemed not to recognize Asriel. Their eyes fluttered and closed once again, and they rolled onto their back, their hand falling limply from their brother’s wrist. With that, their chest began to slowly rise and fall, and they fell back into their slumber.

Asriel drew the blanket up to Chara’s chin as they slept, and caressed their cheek. His fingers came away damp, and Asriel felt a wave of sympathy wash away all the suspicion he’d felt. He’d had nights like this. He’d had them for years after the Calamity over a decade ago, although his night terrors had never involved such… eloquent utterances. It seemed his sibling had picked up a penchant for Shakespeare.

Asriel stayed by Chara’s side until they settled into a more peaceful sleep. He drew the curtains closed, made one last move to adjust Chara’s pillow, and departed, closing the bedroom door tightly behind him and leaving his estranged sibling in peace.

–

Soma woke up to find a man standing over his bed—a white man in a long red leather coat, his eyes hidden by a pair of red-tinted John Lennon glasses.

No—no, it wasn’t _his_ bed. He was in a hospital. Memories of last night came flooding back to him. The man in red. Blood—blood everywhere. That strange light—

The man in the coat took a seat in the chair next to Soma. He spoke English with a hint of a New England accent. “Good day to you. It seems you’re in a bit of trouble. Soma Cruz, was it? My name is Gavin Fripp. Tell me, do you remember anything from last night?”

“I—” Soma struggled to recall the night. He’d been on his way from the convenience store, the man with the red suit had attacked him—had he _killed_ him? Had the man been human at all? Soma shook his head. “I don’t remember anything,” he lied.

Fripp smiled wryly. “You came into this hospital covered in blood. And very little of it was your own. Mr. Cruz, have you ever blacked out before? Ever experienced a feeling of missing time?”

“N-no…”

“Have you ever had a psychotic episode? A petit mal or grand mal seizure? Has anybody in your family been diagnosed with schizophrenia?”

Soma struggled under the barrage of questions. Did they think he’d murdered somebody? _Had_ he? “Am I under investigation? I’m not answering any questions until I see a lawyer.”

The man laughed. “Watched too many American police procedurals, have you? Now…” He flipped through a manila folder. “Soma Cruz, American exchange student, born to Luis and Minako Cruz in New York on twenty-one August 2017… Oh, but _are_ you still a student? It says you’ve _just_ graduated high school. A year early?”

“Gifted student. I’ll be attending university here on a student visa in the fall.”

Fripp shook his head and clucked his tongue, and Soma felt his heart plummet into his stomach, as though he already knew what the man would say next. “Oh, no, no, Soma, I’m afraid you _won’t_ be. The Japanese government would hardly issue such a highly-sought-after visa to a mentally-unbalanced murderer…”

Soma exploded. _“What?_ I don’t know who the _hell_ you think you are,” he snapped, “but you can’t threaten me with _anything!_ I haven’t done anything wrong, and I know my rights! I didn’t kill _anyone!”_

“Of course, of course. Those such as yourself rarely see your victims as, well… _anyone.”_

“What I _mean_ is—”

Before Soma could get a word in edgewise, Fripp continued. “Unfortunately, that man was very important. Now, I’m certain you could plead insanity for his murder, and quite successfully, as you don’t seem to be… ‘all there,’ in my expert opinion. But either way, guilty or innocent, the choice is between extradition and deportation.”

 _Deportation?_ The word hit Soma like a punch to the gut. This couldn’t be real. He’d made his home here. This had to be a dream, or a practical joke—

“But I’m here to offer you a third option, Soma. Are you listening?”

Soma weakly nodded his head, although with Fripp’s threats still ringing in his ears, he could barely hear them.

Fripp leaned in closer. “Soma Cruz, I can make all this go away. There’ll be nothing in anybody’s records about this… incident, or even your hospitalization here. You’ll even be able to come back and visit this country again… although, of course, you’ll have to lay low for about four or six months. But you’ll have to leave Japan within the next thirty-six hours.” He smiled, placing a card with a phone number on the bedside table. “I’ll even pay for your plane ticket. First class, if you’d like. Anywhere in the world but here.”

“B-but…” Four or six _months?_ That would ruin his future education plans—what would his parents think?

“This is a golden opportunity, Soma.” Fripp nodded, as if in agreement with himself. “Get-out-of-jail-free cards like this are luxuries typically reserved only for the wealthy.” He shrugged. “You're a very lucky boy.”

Soma could feel something burning inside him. He felt like he was filled with cobras, and they all wanted to bite this man in the neck.

“One other special request I have—before you leave, why not dye your hair a sensible, _normal_ color?”

Soma bounded out of bed and grabbed Fripp by his collar, pushing him against the hospital’s sterile white wall, drawing his fist back, and driving it into Fripp’s jaw. The man’s glasses flew off and clattered to the floor and he collapsed to the floor, holding his jaw. He scrabbled for his glasses, picking them up off the floor. Like any other bully, he crumpled like a ragdoll when stood up to.

Soma grabbed him by the lapels of his coat and lifted Fripp up, the glasses falling from his hand and hitting the floor once again. “You think I’d buy any of your crap? I know bullshit when I smell it, and you’re full of it.”

Fripp kept his cool. “You’re only digging a deeper grave for yourself, Mr. Cruz…” Fripp’s collar slipped, and Soma caught sight of a symbol on his neck. He’d seen it before—on the neck of the red-suited man from last night.

The Black Sun.

So he was more than some power-tripping bully. Fripp slid out of Soma’s loosening grasp, grabbed his sunglasses off the floor, and pushed them up the bridge of his nose. “Come to your senses, have you?”

Gavin Fripp. The man in red. They’d been in on it together. And that wasn't the half of it—he now remembered more than just that symbol’s name.

The Black Sun was a sign used in the 1930s and 40s by occult enthusiasts in the upper echelons of the Third Reich. What sort of conspiracy was this? And why had _Soma_ of all people been drawn into it? _God help me,_ he thought, _I picked a fight with goddamn_ _neo-_ _Nazis._

Fripp drew up his collar, covering the occult symbol. “I really hoped it wouldn’t come to this, Soma. But it really would behoove you to take my offer.” He smiled. “Both for your own sake, and for your friends—or, rather, _friend_ . Mina, isn’t it? I’m sure you couldn’t bear for her to suffer for _your_ sake.”

“You bastard.”

Fripp grinned so widely Soma thought he could see almost all of his teeth. _“Now, gods, stand up for bastards.”_

–

Soma spent the rest of the morning in a daze, the words of the red-coated Nazi bastard still echoing in his head. The more he thought about it, the more he felt as though there was a parasite burrowing its way through his intestines. Even the sight of the Hakuba Shrine at the top of the hill couldn't lift his spirits. He felt like he was going to die. _If I stay,_ he thought, _the Nazis will kill me. If I leave, my parents will kill me._ He had the losing jingle from that old game show _The Price is Right_ playing on a constant loop in his head.

Mina was waiting for him at the shrine, dressed in traditional _miko_ fashion: a long red skirt, a white haori jacket, and scarlet ribbons in her auburn hair. She had J in tow, still wearing his shabby brown leather coat. The drifter cradled, of all things, a wicker basket in the crook of his arm.

They appeared to have become fast friends. Of course they had. Mina could befriend a rabid wolf. And Soma had to admit that while his gut said some not-entirely-friendly things about J, he was much less dangerous to Mina than a rabid wolf.

Soma put on a braver, or at least less miserable face, and popped his collar. “Nice digs, but my jacket’s more swag.”

Mina laughed.

“Hey, don’t rag on the holy garb,” J said to Soma. “She’ll curse you.”

“I can’t _curse_ someone!” Mina protested, although her tone suggested she knew full well J was joking. “I’m not a witch!”

Mina led the two up a long staircase, through the tall gates of the shrine, and toward a grassy knoll. [J and I spent all morning getting ready for the picnic,] she told Soma. [Where’ve you been? We were afraid you wouldn’t show up!]

[I,] Soma started, swallowing hard. [I’m…] He took a deep breath.

[Did something happen? Are you hurt? Are you sick?]

Soma tried to smile, but couldn’t. That was Mina—the mom friend to end all mom friends. [I’m not hurt or sick, I just… I have to…] He took a deep breath. “I have to leave the country.”

Mina froze in her tracks. “What do you _mean?”_

Soma explained everything—well, _almost_ everything. The melting man and the glowing orb, and how his mortal wound had vanished without a trace, he left out. “I got into a fight with a gang member or something last night. I got a visit from his boss this morning. He told me to leave within the next two days and stay off the grid for the next few months—or else.”

Mina looked scandalized. [He can’t do that!] she said.

[He said you’d get hurt if I stayed!] Soma answered.

“Hey, hold on, Mr. Chivalry,” said J. “What makes you think Mina needs you to throw your life down the tubes on _her_ behalf?” He made a fist. “Hell, I’ve been a bouncer for a few rowdy clubs in my day. Lots of experience keeping the riff-raff away…”

Mina grabbed Soma by the arm. [Soma, you can’t do this. What will you tell your parents?]

He pulled his arm away. [Easy. I—I’ll tell them I decided not to go to college. They’ll just have to get used to having a failure for a son.]

J patted Soma on the shoulder. “Listen, Soma. I know you’re almost an adult, and of course you think you might as well _be_ one, but you’re still a kid, and you shouldn’t be allowed to make your own decisions. Case in point: this one, the one you’re making right now.”

Soma shrugged off J’s hand. “Duly noted, _pardner.”_

“Hey.”

Mina was glum. She had often said that Soma had a mind like a freight train. It was very fast, and very strong, but once you set it on a track it was very hard to change its course. [You’re not going to change your mind about this, are you?]

What was there to change? It was over.

She thought for a moment, and her eyes suddenly brightened, the despondent look leaving her face like an unwelcome visitor. [Wait. I’ve got an idea. Soma, the boss said he’d buy you a ticket to anywhere in the world, right?]

[I’ve thought about it, but going to Tibet, learning the mystic arts, and coming back in five years to beat him up is a bit of a long shot,] Soma answered with a bitter, sardonic smile.

[No, I mean, what if I got in touch with Miss Yoko and she helped you get an internship with that agency she works for? Then you can just tell your parents you found an employment opportunity and took it! You know, not everyone goes to college right after high school.]

Soma could feel the weight lifting off his shoulders. [You think that’ll work?]

[I _know_ it’ll work.] She pulled out her phone. [They’re twelve hours behind us, right?]

[You can’t just _call_ them, it’s practically midnight over there!]

But Mina had already dialed the phone and, within seconds, got a response. “Hello, Miss Yoko! Can I talk to you about something?”

She briefly described Soma’s situation, despite his protests. [I don’t want them to think I’m a charity case just because I got attacked by some Nazi zombie in a red suit!] he cried out.

Mina paused in mid-sentence. “Um, what’s that? Soma just said—Oh, okay.” She handed the phone to Soma. “They want to ask you some questions.”

 _Oh, god,_ thought Soma. _If there is a god, he’ll smite me right now._ He took the phone. “Hello?”

It was not Yoko, but rather the tall, dark, and handsome government spook who answered on the other end. _“Soma Cruz.”_

“Hi, Agent Mulder,” said Soma.

“ _Arikado,”_ Arikado corrected.

“You’re welcome.”

Arikado ignored the pun completely. _“Mr. Soma Cruz, did you just say you were attacked? By a man in a red suit?”_

“Yeah. But I don’t see how this—”

“ _Did he have a sword?”_

He’d had a sharp pointy thing attached to his hand, which seemed close enough. “Um. Yes. He did. Sort of. I think.”

“ _And when you killed him, did he leave anything behind but a pool of blood?”_

“What?” How could this guy have possibly known _that?_

“ _Well?”_

“No. He just melted.” He still felt stupid saying it, even though Arikado had brought it up in the first place.

Arikado and Yoko conferred among themselves for a while, speaking in hushed tones Soma couldn’t make out. He wondered if maybe Yoko and Arikado were pursuing whatever group Fripp was a part of.

Finally, Arikado returned to the phone. _“Soma Cruz. Listen to me very carefully. You will need to fly into this exact airport, as soon as possible…”_ He fed his instructions to Soma. _“Do you understand?”_

“Crystal clear, Mr. Arikado.”

“ _Good. Let us know as soon as you arrive.”_ With that, Arikado brusquely hung up.

“Did you… get the job?” J asked.

“I think so,” Soma replied. In truth, he had no idea what he was signing up for.

Mina smiled and gave him a big hug. “See, Soma, everything’s going to be just fine!”

The next time Soma would see Fripp, he would have to resist the urge, however powerful it was, to laugh in his face as the man handed Soma his plane ticket. _But t_ _he next time our paths cross,_ Soma thought, _I am going to pound your stupid glasses into your stupid face._

–

Alucard handed the phone back to his counterpart. “Well,” he said, “that leaves us with quite a lot to mull over, doesn’t it?”

Yoko crossed her arms. “Are you sure it’s wise to bring him here? He’s barely an adult, and we’re in a dangerous enough spot ourselves.”

“We need to know why whoever sent those homunculi after us has such a vested interest in a young Soma Cruz,” Alucard said, although a part of him already knew. “Since we cannot go to him, he must come to us.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've heard of having to move for your new job, but this is ridiculous.


	4. Crossing Paths, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Alucard and Asriel come face to face.

Asriel’s first thoughts in the morning, filling his head as he dressed himself, were of the USB drive he’d swiped last night. He wondered if Chara had realized it was missing, and if they would suspect him if they did.

He had to look at it. He wanted to believe in everything this traveler was saying, but too many things seemed strange. A reluctance to talk about their world as openly as Asriel could talk about his. No plan to return to their home universe any time soon—but bringing with them nothing but the clothes on their back.

Asriel needed answers.

Long ago, before his adopted sibling had passed away, they had started asking Asriel to call them “Zero.” He hadn’t learned who Zero had been until much later—a creature of evil, created in a distant universe and called to his own—but by that point the damage had been done. He wanted to believe that this Chara from another world was just his sibling and nothing more… but uncertainty lurked in the corner of his mind.

If Chara were hiding something dark, something evil—the clue could live here, on the one possession they’d brought with them.

Asriel pulled his laptop out from its leather case, booted it up, and plugged the USB flash drive into it. It seemed, luckily, that the parallel universe used the same type of USB connections and the same file systems, as this one, but the drive was password protected. Of course it was.

Asriel pondered the password for a few seconds, then typed in his name. It was a long shot, but—

The flash drive’s contents popped up on screen, much to his surprise. It was labeled “Transcripts,” and a list of documents scrolled by, all with dates and short, nondescript titles.

The first and earliest document was labeled “Coronation”:

_My Royal Subjects:_

_This kingdom has always been the only place I have been able to call my home. Whether above ground or below, no people on Earth, or below it, can match us for kindness, hospitality, and forward-thinking. To me, our kingdom was a shining city on a hill, even long before the barrier that kept us imprisoned came down._

_It is with great humility that I accept the crown and take my place as your Monarch, and with it, all responsibilities of the role. I pledge to forever defend this kingdom, from threats within and without, to protect and nurture my subjects to the best of my ability, and to make this kingdom a beacon of light, not just for the young child who ran from their village all those years ago, but to all people across the world who dream of a better tomorrow._

_My dear subjects, I dream of a world transformed by the values of our kingdom. A world of peace, of coexistence, where children like me—the strange ones, the abandoned ones, the forgotten ones—can look up and see themselves as a king, a queen, and anything in between. My short time upon this Earth may not allow me to see that day, but I will work tirelessly, day and night, to make my dream—our dream—come true._

It went on like that for quite a while—several pages, in fact—before concluding:

_Thank you, my subjects, and may our kingdom forever be blessed._

This had been their coronation speech. Chara seemed to have grown into quite an eloquent politician, if they had written this speech themselves.

His suspicions began to subside, drawing back like the waves at low tide. The speech was a little egoistic, but Asriel could sense its wide-eyed idealistic bent. It put his mind at ease—but not fully. He wanted to know as much as possible about Chara’s parallel world, and if answers were not forthcoming from his own sibling…

Asriel made to open the next document when a notification popped up on the desktop. _Revenue bill deliberation, Parliament Hall: 30 minutes from now_

Government affairs would have to come first. Asriel closed and packed away the laptop, pocketing the purloined flash drive, and made his way downstairs.

The kitchen was a cornucopia of smells: bacon, breakfast sausage, diced and roasted potatoes, pancakes, scrambled eggs, waffles… enough of a buffet to make the pickiest eater’s mouth water. The combined smells wormed their way into every room in the palace.

Asriel stepped down the stairs with a jaunty spring in his step. “Morning, Mom. Morning, Chara.” He gave Toriel a quick hug and a peck on the cheek. “I’d love to stay for breakfast, but public servitude beckons.”

Toriel grabbed him before he could dart away. “Come now, Asriel, you have a guest. And not only that, but _family._ At least take the morning off and be a proper host. Oh, and weren’t you going to wear the _good_ eyepatch today? The white one?”

Asriel reached up to touch his face, not quite comprehending.

“The gala, Asriel. It’s tonight,” Toriel reminded him.

“Gala?” Chara asked, intrigued.

“An annual charity gala to promote good relations between monsters and humans,” Toriel explained. “It’s the, er… Frisk Gala.”

Chara glanced around the room, as if finally noticing their absence. “Ah, yes, where is the delightful little…” They picked up the atmosphere in the room very quickly, and their face fell. “I—I’m sure they’d have been honored. _”_

“I’ll change into my dress clothes at the office,” Asriel assured his mother. “Take it easy on Chara today, Mom. I imagine they’ve had a rough trip.”

“Please, Asriel. Take the morning off,” Toriel pleaded. “Chara has traveled from _another universe_ to see you.”

“I need to speak in front of Parliament today,” Asriel protested. “There’s a very important bill I want to make sure gets through, and I was hoping to convince some of the praetors still on the fence…”

“I am sure they will pass it without you cajoling them. Which bill is it again?”

“It’s a bill to raise the gas tax from point five cents per gallon to point five three cents per gallon.” As soon as he explained it, he realized exactly how petty he sounded.

Chara burst out laughing, spewing coffee across the table.

Asriel sighed. “Okay. The bill doesn’t get voted on until noon. I’ll take the morning off.”

–

That morning, Alucard and Yoko picked a random diner to discuss what they’d learned. The further away from their hotel, and the more sparsely populated, the better. They’d ended up in a coffee bar that didn’t open for another hour, but the staff were nowhere in sight and the lock to the front door had been easy enough to pick.

First things first—the Agency no longer had faith in them as operatives. Alucard was particularly incensed by this—he’d fought on the side of the Belmont clan, a legendary family of vampire slayers, since 1476, and his illustrious service record more than spoke for itself. Killed Dracula once on his own, and helped two—no, three times.

Second—somebody was targeting them. Someone who’d been keeping an eye on their movements, possibly since they left their previous assignment, or even earlier. And what’s more, they were targeting other people as well—even ones who were on another continent—perhaps with the primary goal not of killing them, but simply of placing them as far away from the Hakuba Shrine as possible. That suggested a very long arm at work. If not a traitorous faction within the Agency, then the Agency itself.

“You think they’ve gone rogue?” Yoko asked.

Alucard finished his coffee. “There is precedent for it, as you may recall. Perhaps it is even natural,” he said with a slight sardonic smile, “for those who seek to hold Dracula at bay to eventually fall prey to a lust for his power.”

“Except for the Belmonts.”

“To use a military turn of phrase, a Belmont is always on the front lines, never a general or an admiral. Corruption, Ms. Belnades, lurks and festers best in halls of power.”

Yoko sighed. “I don’t think it’s come to that.”

The witch might still hold out hope, but Alucard had no more faith in his employer—his _former_ employer. “Ah, to be young. Now,” he said, “what do we need to do to get into Dracula’s castle from here?”

Yoko shrugged. “Find a way into the Royal Observatory.”

“That will not be difficult.”

“On the day of the eclipse. When, I’m assuming, it’ll be filled with people, including the king. It’s _his_ observatory.”

Alucard stroked his chin. “Well,” he said. “That does complicate things, doesn’t it?”

–

For Asriel, “take the morning off” quickly escalated into “take the morning and afternoon off,” upon Toriel’s insistence.

“If we make dinner early enough,” she’d said, smiling giddily in a way Asriel hadn’t seen in all of his adult life, “you can even join us before you head off for the gala! A dinner with the whole family—wouldn’t that be nice?” She’d quickly added, somewhat soberly, “Well, most of the whole family.”

First they’d gone shopping for new clothes—Chara had only the clothes on their back. “Perhaps you’ll find something to wear for tonight,” Toriel told Asriel.

“I’ve got it taken care of, Mom. The King can dress himself.”

“Yeah,” Chara butted in as they piled an armful of skinny jeans and sweatpants into the shopping cart, “but _should_ you?”

“The Purple Haze outfit again?” Toriel asked.

“It’s ‘Purple Rain,’ Mom.”

“I preferred ‘When Doves Cry,’” Chara said.

Toriel looked at the clothes Chara had picked out and raised an eyebrow.

“I was a public citizen back home,” Chara said, using ‘back home’ as a euphemism for the timeline they’d left—or fled. “Every day it was slacks, pencil skirts, suit pants, pantsuits, suitcoats and waistcoats and suitwaists and coatcoats. No thanks. I need a break. Time to get some ‘give-up-on-life’ pants.”

“‘Give-up-on-life pants?’” Asriel asked.

“You were in the public eye?” Toriel asked.

“Of course. Eldest child, you know. Next in line for the throne.” Chara laid an incredibly colorful collection of undergarments on top of the pile of jeans and pulled out their wallet, but Toriel snatched it out of their hand.

“No, no, my dear,” she said. “You are replacing your entire wardrobe. I won’t ask you to pay a cent.”

“Probably for the best,” said Chara.

“Right—your money must be different,” said Asriel.

With clothing taken care of, the Dreemurr family moved on to food. Asriel stopped at the bakery. “Hold on. Guys, you’ve got to see this.” He went in and came out with a glazed doughnut covered with yellow icing and a white-powdered doughnut hole. “Eclipse donuts!”

Chara seemed unimpressed.

“You see,” said Asriel, “this lemon doughnut is the sun. And this powdered sugar doughnut is the moon.” He moved the doughnut hole in front of the doughnut. “It’s an eclipse!”

“Why?”

Toriel patted Chara on the shoulder. “There’s a total solar eclipse right over the mountain in just a few days. Asriel has been personally planning a great festival to commemorate it.”

“Everyone’s over the moon for it. Pardon the pun. Most people go their whole lives without ever seeing an eclipse,” Asriel babbled, giddy as a child on Christmas Eve. For a while, at least, planning the eclipse festival had been the brightest spot in his day-to-day life. Few things excited him more than celestial phenomena—it was why he’d studied astronomy in school despite not having a head for numbers in the slightest.

“Nobody in this kingdom—none of us monsters anyway—have seen one in centuries. But just imagine it! The sky going black as night—in the middle of the afternoon! Owls hooting! Birds falling silent! Crickets chirping! Street lights turning on!”

“And that’s fun?”

Asriel wagged his finger at Chara. “Oh, you’ll see. You’ll see, all right. I mean, you’ll have to wear special glasses so you don’t burn your retinas out. But you’ll see.” He took a bite out of the sun doughnut. It was excessively sour, sour enough to make his mouth nearly turn itself inside out. And yet these things were somehow flying off the shelves.

Chara crossed their arms. “That sounds like a threat.”

Toriel laughed. “Now, now, children. Play nice.” She tousled Chara’s hair. “You will enjoy the festival, dear. And speaking of celebrations, just imagine how happy the kingdom will be when we announce that you’ve come back! Er… how _did_ you come back?”

Chara shrugged. “Necromancy.”

“ _Necromancy!?”_ Asriel stumbled over the word. Toriel nearly shrieked.

“Yeah, technically I’m under the thrall of some eternal dark lord with a lot of apostrophes in his name,” said Chara. “It’s no big deal, though. Pays like crap, but I get five weeks of paid vacation and sick days a year and full health benefits, plus dental.”

Asriel and Toriel stared at Chara. Eventually, their straight-faced facade cracked, and they burst out laughing.

“You _believed_ me! You really believed that a _necromancer_ brought me back to life!”

Asriel took a deep breath and let his pulse slow down. “But… how _did_ you come back?”

Chara suppressed a few last giggles. “Oh, it wasn’t anything fancy. We genetically engineered a body for me, grew it in a vat, and implanted my consciousness into it. It was nice to have total creative control over my body—” They scratched at their head. “Although I couldn’t give myself the horns I wanted. Couldn't figure out the right hormones.”

“Right,” said Asriel. “Simple stuff.”

They walked on, moving into the crowded farmer’s market that set up shop once every week like clockwork. Business was always booming—for a people who’d lived life underground, produce grown on fresh air and pure sunlight was still a treasure beyond measure.

Asriel prodded at the fresh cherry tomatoes on display and picked one up, holding the small round fruit between his thumb and forefinger. “May I?” he inquired to the stand’s owner, a translucent, rainbow-hued crystalline monster. The fluorite monster nodded, and with their blessing, the king swiftly popped the tomato into his mouth and gingerly chewed it, savoring the taste. Intensely flavorful, sweet, low acidity, and filled with juice that tasted like distilled summer, even though it was still spring (it was a warm spring, and had been a mild winter).

“You’ve done it again, my friend,” Asriel pronounced. “I’ll take half a pound—and add on the cost of the one I ate.”

The owner bowed. “Certainly, Your Highness,” they said, with a voice like wind chimes, and began placing tomatoes on a digital scale as Asriel fished for his wallet.

“A real man of the people, eh?” somebody asked from behind Asriel.

An old man, nearly bald with wisps of white hair like the dregs of unflavored cotton candy, an immaculately-pressed blue suit clinging to his stick-like body, stood behind the king, a somewhat playful smile creasing his wrinkled face.

Morton Kaine, technology magnate, owner of Kaine Incorporated Holdings, which as Asriel understood, owned so many smaller companies that you could buy almost anything over the course of an average day and rest assured that a large portion of the money you spent went in Morton Kaine’s unfathomably deep pocket. He’d been a thorn in Toriel’s side long before she’d passed the crown on to Asriel, and now he was a thorn in Asriel's side.

“King Asriel. I didn’t expect to see you this far uptown, especially with that tax hike going through Parliament today.”

Asriel paid for his produce, thanked the monster who’d grown the tomatoes, and collected his bag before addressing Kaine. “Morton Kaine. If it weren’t for all the food here, I’d have smelled you coming a mile away. And I'd hardly call a zero point fifty-three cent increase in—”

Kaine was the kind of person who was so rich, so insulated from the consequences of his actions, that any insult you threw at him rolled off of him like water off a duck’s back. He knew it, and he took no expense to make certain _you_ knew it, too. “Have I, perhaps, convinced you to abandon your ill-conceived taxative tyranny?”

The way Asriel saw it, you had to smile in front of men like Morton Kaine—even if all you _really_ wanted to do was show him how far his money would get him with a sword run through his chest.

“Not a chance, my good sir,” Asriel answered. “I simply had other matters to attend to today. As I’m sure you’d agree—” He gestured over to his mother and sibling down the road, both currently searching for perfect russet potatoes— “family comes first.”

“Oh?” Kaine strode over. “Ah, Lady Toriel. How nice to see you again. Retirement must be treating you well.”

“It most certainly is, Mr. Kaine,” Toriel responded, her smile overly saccharine. “Why, you really should give it a try yourself.”

Kaine laughed, then bent his knees to talk to Chara, even though they were only a few inches shorter than he was. “And who might this fine young lady be?”

Chara looked straight at Asriel, poking their thumb at the man. “Asriel, just who is this desiccated leech of a man?”

“This,” Asriel said, “is Ebeneezer Scrooge—er, I mean, Morton Kaine.”

“I was just asking my public-sector counterpart if he’d reconsidered his disastrous tax plan yet.” Kaine absentmindedly picked under his fingernails as he turned again to face Asriel. “You see, with all this unfair taxation that might be foisted upon me, I’m afraid I might have to take my businesses elsewhere. And wouldn’t that be a shame, Your Highness? Tell me, I’m getting forgetful in my old age—how much of your kingdom do I employ within my various businesses? Fifteen percent? Twenty-five?”

Toriel was aghast. “Have you no shame?” She’d never have allowed that through her filter when she’d been Queen, preferring to leave her epithets for private company—but, of course, she was now a private citizen, and could speak her mind quite freely.

“I’m very sorry to hear that you feel so personally victimized by my actions as king,” Asriel responded, trying very hard not to imagine how satisfying it would be to put this man’s head on a pike. “Perhaps we can discuss it over tea tomorrow afternoon and reach a fair compromise for both of us?”

“I’d be delighted, Your Highness.” Kaine stuck out his hand, and Asriel grasped it as firmly as he could without breaking every bone in the man’s wrist.

“Now go,” Asriel said, “and darken my doorstep no more.” Kaine, of course, laughed it off and vanished into the crowd.

“That was a dirty move,” Toriel said sourly once Kaine had left the scene and the family began their walk back home. “Ambushing you in public like that.”

“Should’ve expected it. Dirty moves are all he knows.”

“You aren’t going to just _take_ that, are you?” Chara asked, nudging Asriel sharply in the ribs.

“Of course not. I’ll have the last laugh.”

“How? By _compromising_ with him?”

“No, by comp—” Wait, yes, that was _exactly_ what he’d planned to do. “What would _you_ do, Your Highness?”

Chara’s eyes sparkled. “I’m glad you asked! I’d have him arrested for attempted extortion and intimidation of royalty and tie him up in court. Upon a guilty verdict, I’d proceed to seize and liquidate his assets, leaving him penniless and powerless.” They punctuated their plan with a smile. “And, of course, he'd be in a dingy little cell for the rest of his life.”

That required some executive power Asriel was fairly sure he didn’t have under the terms of the new government—or even the old one. “How would you know he’d get a guilty verdict?”

“I don’t know about _your_ kingdom,” Chara remarked nonchalantly, “but in _mine_ , the Royal Guard always gets their man.”

It was an ominous statement. Asriel felt for the flash drive in his pocket. If he left for his office now, he might have enough free time before he had to start getting ready for the gala to read a few more of Chara’s royal proclamations.

Besides, all the work he was letting stay undone right now, all the people he had to meet and bargains he had to make, he couldn’t put _all that_ on hold any longer. If he wasn’t busy, if he didn’t make himself useful, then…

Asriel pretended to check his phone. “Oh, I’m sorry, fam. Something’s just come up. It’s really urgent.”

“Are you sure?” Toriel asked. Asriel felt like he was being grilled.

“Yes, yes, it’s very important. Extremely important. Defcon 3 important,” said Asriel, a bit more forcefully and defensively than he’d intended. “I’m sorry. I have to go. Now.” He handed the tomatoes he’d bought to Chara. “Look, I’ll probably be busy all the way through the gala, but I’ll come home right after. No stopping by the office on the way, I promise. We’ll play cribbage or something.” He gave his mother and Chara each a quick hug, then took off. “Love you! Bye!”

–

The sun was starting to set over the capitol building. The capitol, which housed the entire functional government, was a thing of beauty. A tall, four-story alabaster dome, flanked by two arcing wings that, together, formed half a circle around a lush courtyard and seemed to embrace all who entered it. As the tour guides said, the royal palace wasn’t much to look at (by the king’s own design). This was the _real_ seat of power, and it showed.

Inside were columns of green marble, veined in such a way that it made the building almost seem like an alien living organism. Directly beneath the center of the dome, a copper statue of a winged figure grasped for the heavens. The place was packed with people. They gave tours every hour, which struck Alucard as somewhat unwise.

To the left was Parliament Hall, as the brochures at the entrance helpfully denoted. To the right, the Royal Court. Straight ahead, the King himself had not a throne, but an office. Government had changed a lot since Alucard’s day. Even _kings_ didn’t act like kings anymore.

The King had his own receptionist—an animate skeleton in a red suit. It had given Alucard a start when he’d seen it—his run-ins with living skeletons were, on average, unpleasant. With some sleight-of-hand and superhuman speed and reflexes he’d written his name into the skeleton’s day planner and made his way to the King’s office.

Alucard rested his hand on the doorknob. The frosted glass window on the door had “ASRIEL DREEMURR—KING” stenciled onto it in black block letters. A vampire could not go where he was not invited. But even if the skeleton receptionist at the front desk had told him there was no time for a meeting due to the upcoming gala and asked him to come back another day, Alucard still had an appointment penciled into the calendar. And besides, Alucard was half human. Many of the rules of vampires did not apply to him, or at least applied to him only loosely.

He walked into the office, past a very tastefully-sculpted bust of the former King, let the door silently swing shut behind him, and found himself face to face with the King of Monsters himself.

Asriel wore an eye-popping violet suit over a rather ostentatiously ruffled white shirt, with a half-made tie drooping from his collar. Draped over his shoulders was a flowing violet cape. He seemed to have only a single golden eye, until Alucard realized that he wore a white eyepatch over his left eye, which blended in perfectly with his ivory fur. Alucard appreciated the king’s fashion sense.

“Good evening, King Asriel,” said Alucard, as he took a deep bow. “It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance. My name is Genya Arikado.” He offered his hand to Asriel. “Tell me, Your Highness—How much do you know about Dracula?”

Asriel raised an eyebrow. “If I were anyone else, I’d have thrown you out of this room by now.”

Alucard let his eye rove about the room. The king’s office was, wherever it was not engulfed in stacks of paper, filled with trinkets. Telescopes. Star charts. Gilded astrolabes. The office of a scholar—in particular, an astronomer—and not one to believe in superstitions. “So you believe in Dracula?”

Asriel made a quick backward glance at the ornate full-length mirror behind him, which showed only his back, and not his visitor. “For starters, it would be unbecoming for a monster not to believe in other monsters. And second, you didn’t show up in my mirror, so at least I know now that vampires are real.”

“That makes this much easier, then. I will be brief. Your Highness, I believe there is a gateway to Dracula’s castle on this mountain.”

Barks of laughter exploded from Asriel’s muzzle. But it didn’t seem derisive to Alucard. After a few seconds, the king regained his composure. “Consider my interest piqued. How would you like to meet me at the Museum of Monster History tonight, after the gala?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Asriel is 100% a dork for astronomy and that's practically actual Undertale canon. Just look at the attack names he had in his God of Hyperdeath form! You don't come up with special moves like "Star Blazing" or "Galacta Blazing" unless you're a total space nut.


	5. Crossing Paths, Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Yoko tries to troll Alucard. A new enemy rears its head.

The gala was winding down, and only a few guests still mingled in the slowly-darkening museum. The only lights still on were the lights illuminating the various exhibits laying out the history of the kingdom.

“The King asked us to meet him _after_ the gala, right?” Yoko wondered aloud before her interest was piqued by a triptych illustrating the ancient war between humans and monsters. It had been a remarkably small conflict, easily lost to history save for a few obscure myths and legends, but to the monsters, of course, it had been everything. “Alucard, look at this.”

Alucard sidled over and looked up and down the three paintings making up the triptych. The first, a painting of a monster cradling a human’s body. The second, a war scene. The third, a long queue of despondent monsters being herded into the bowels of a mountain. “Astounding. To think such an event would vanish so quickly and so utterly from human history.”

Yoko nodded. “It reminds me of the Finno-Korean Hyperwar.”

Alucard seemed to wince as each syllable entered his ear. “You made that up.” He crossed his arms. “You are doing that thing called ‘trolling’ again. I won’t fall for it. Not this time.”

“Well, some people actually believe that nine or ten thousand years ago, there were highly-advanced, spacefaring empires of humans in modern-day Finland and southeast Asia. They went to war, conveniently erasing all traces of their existence in the process, of course, and ushered in a global dark age humanity has yet to escape from.”

Alucard groaned. Yoko, in his opinion, spent far too much time on the internet. He didn’t see much value in such an invention, save for its infinite repository of cat pictures. Those were quite good. “Please define ‘some people.’”

“Maybe a dozen?” Yoko shrugged. “At any rate, the human imagination is full of fantasy ‘lost continents’ and ‘lost civilizations’, from Atlantis to Lemuria. This kingdom seems to be the one such legend that ended up being true.”

“I beg to differ. When I was a boy, my mother took me on a wonderful summer holiday to Atlantis.” Alucard’s mouth had barely curved into what might have been a smirk, which was the most he seemed capable of smiling as far as Yoko knew, and she was convinced he was pulling her leg. “I met a lovely mermaid there and we were nearly betrothed. Unfortunately, I never returned.”

Yoko shook her head in disbelief, and Alucard moved on to the next exhibit, a collection of transcribed scrolls written by the kingdom’s first Royal Scientist (or, as they were called back then, Royal Alchemists). “I’m interested in this,” he said, pointing to the scrolls.

Yoko looked over the transcription printed on the display plaque.

 _No matter where we dig, we can neither go around the barrier, nor can we go under it. Whether we tunnel north, south, west, east, up, or down, we only find more mountain. I fear the kingdom now lives only within a nether space, as if we exist only in the reflection of a silvered glass. We have no way of knowing how time passes outside, even with the detritus which falls into our prison. We have been sealed not into_ a _mountain, I fear, but_ all _mountains. We are everywhere and nowhere…_

The young witch pensively put her finger to her lip. “It sounds like…”

“The same magic,” Alucard continued, “which bound Dracula’s castle to the eclipse back at the Hakuba Shrine. As you suspected.” Alucard came back to the triptych. “Look at this again. The human armies—don’t they seem rather… ancient to you? _Older_ than the two thousand years this kingdom was sealed away?” The weapons the humans used looked to be Bronze Age, perhaps older.

“Ancient Mesopotamia, maybe,” Yoko admitted. “But this mountain is a continent away. Unless you’re saying it got up and walked across the ocean…”

“The mountain didn’t move. The _kingdom_ did.” _Just as_ _Dracula’s home of Castlevania_ _could_ _move through time and space_ _at the whim of its master_ _._ These places were connected somehow—not directly, of course, but by similar works of magic.

“Genya Arikado?” A burly, bearish museum docent approached the two visitors. “The King apologizes for keeping you waiting. He’s ready to see you now.” He led Alucard and Yoko deeper into the museum, past glass-encased statues, paintings, and pottery. “I hope you’ll consider coming by tomorrow for a half-price guided tour,” he told them, somewhat apologetically, before ushering the two into a private room near the back of the museum.

In the well-furnished conference room, the king sat at a round table with the captain of the guard and (Alucard would later learn) her wife, who both seemed thoroughly preoccupied with a conversation about cartoons. The captain was a lean, battle-scarred fish-woman with blue scales, red-tipped fins, and a mane of red fiery hair. Like the King, she too wore an eyepatch. Her companion was a short, spiny yellow lizard with thick-rimmed glasses who stumbled over her words.

While the other two monsters bickered, King Asriel was in a dispute about something with a third guest, a hawkish monster with perfectly-coiffed iridescent feathers who seemed perpetually about to leave, then only just changing his mind and deciding to stay for one more second.

“Oh, and one more thing,” he said, wagging a scaly talon in the king’s face. “It’s not enough that we’re losing our culture. More human immigrants means more mouths to feed, more houses to build. Who’s going to pay for that, eh?”

“Praetor Baldric, first of all, as I have told you time and time again—”

“And how many more days like yesterday do you need? How many more human criminals will you have to deal with before you realize that the naive initiatives you’ve spearheaded are hurting our kingdom?”

“Spare me the invective.” Asriel’s glare hardened. “How many times must I—”

“Will my tax dollars fund this slow-moving erasure of our culture?”

Asriel looked over the hawkman’s shoulders and noticed that Alucard and Yoko had arrived. “Again, lest I repeat myself, nobody is losing their culture, Mr. Baldric,” he said sternly. “Now, if you’ll please leave, I have other guests—”

“What’ll I do,” the praetor interjected, “when half my constituents are human?”

“I imagine you’ll have to listen to them. Heaven forbid you do your _job.”_ Asriel crossed his arms. “Now, there are two people right behind you I was hoping to have a private conversation with. If you would be so kind…?”

The hawkman snarled wordlessly and barged out of the room, narrowly bowling the two spies over on his way out.

When the coast was clear, Asriel muttered an exasperated curse _,_ then rubbed his forehead for a bit, regained his composure, and welcomed the newcomers. “Mr. Arikado. I beg your pardon, I just got cornered by one of the more, uh, annoying members of Parliament. Thank you for joining us this evening.” He shook Alucard’s hand vigorously, then Yoko’s. “And you as well, Miss…”

“Yoko Belnades, Your Highness. Pleased to meet you.”

“Likewise!” For such a sharp-toothed monster Asriel had quite a warm and friendly smile. He turned to his dinner guests. “Friends,” he announced, “Mr. Arikado and Ms. Belnades have quite a story for us. Mr. Arikado, Ms. Belnades, this is Captain Undyne—” he gestured to the blue-scaled fish-woman— “and Doctor Alphys.” He gestured to the short yellow lizard. “Please do acquaint yourself with each other.”

Alucard and Yoko took their seats. “You may call me Alucard. First things first,” he said, “we work for an agency dedicated to protecting the world from Dracula.”

“Or, rather, we _used_ to,” Yoko added.

“We suspect foul play.”

Alphys’ hand shot up. “O-Oh, Oh! I get it! Your c-codename is A-Alucard because it’s Dracula backwards, and you’re leading this anti-Dracula task force!”

 _Close enough,_ thought Alucard. _Arikado,_ not Alucard, was the codename, but there was no reason for them to know that.

Undyne’s eye sparkled. “Are you here to recruit us, Arikado- _san?”_ The Captain of the Guard continued with a voice dripping with enthusiasm. “Well, you’ve come to the right place, buddy. There’s no one in the kingdom stronger than me. I’ll punch Dracula.” Undyne flexed her bicep while flashing a grin full of jagged fangs. “I’ll suplex Dracula. I’ll suplex his whole castle.”

“My apologies for not being more clear,” said Alucard. “We will not be fighting Dracula. He is dead.”

Undyne’s face fell.

“Isn’t he _always_ dead?” Alphys asked. “Er, _un_ dead?”

“He was destroyed thirty years ago, completely ending his cycle of regeneration. We sealed the seat of his power, Castlevania, inside an eclipse—much like how your people were sealed away thousands of years ago.”

“But with the upcoming eclipse,” Yoko added, “that seal will weaken, giving anybody the chance to take the castle for themselves—and become a new Dracula.”

“That sounds, uh… bad,” Alphys noted.

“It is. Especially since we now believe somebody in our agency may wish to do exactly that.” Alucard briefly explained the events that had caused himself and Yoko to doubt their employers’ integrity.

“So, Mr. Arikado… Alucard,” Asriel asked, “what do you want from us?”

“Until we came here, we believed there was only one entry point to the castle—the Hakuba Shrine in Japan, where the sealing ritual was performed. But my counterpart’s research suggests that there is, in fact, another—on this very mountain.”

The king couldn’t hide his curiosity, but seemed to dread the answer. “And where might that be?” he asked.

“Your Royal Observatory. We need exclusive access to your observatory on the day of the eclipse.” Alucard kept a close eye on Asriel’s face, reading his reaction—kings never did have enough power, did they? It would be reasonable to suspect Asriel of wanting to claim such power for himself, if he knew about it.

Asriel sighed. “I was planning on having a nice viewing party for my court there, but if the world is at stake…”

“He’s saved the world once before, you know,” Undyne butted in. “Don’t let the Clark Kent look fool you.”

Asriel gave his two guests a quizzical look. “Are you sure you’re both, er… _combat-ready?”_

“We have extensive experience,” Yoko said, assuming a much more confident posture, “with fighting the forces of darkness.”

“My counterpart, Ms. Belnades, has accompanied me for quite some time now,” Alucard added. “As for myself, I have been inside Dracula’s castle and dealt with its perils more times than anybody… save, perhaps, for Dracula himself.”

“Well then, you seem rather well-prepared. Although you’ve piqued my interest enough that I may even want to accompany you.” Asriel stood from his seat and turned to the captain. “Undyne, my friend. Are there any other Guardsmen you’d care to bring along as an entourage?”

Undyne groaned. “Dunno about that. We’re spread pretty thin right now. I’ve almost got as much work to do as _you_ , Asriel!”

“We won’t require such measures. That you’re allowing us to use your observatory,” said Alucard, “is quite enough.”

“Just the two of you?” Asriel asked.

“We have a friend flying in to join us tomorrow,” Yoko added. “The three of us will be enough.”

“What about weapons? Equipment? Provisions? Or at least, given your situation, an escort back to your hotel? Or maybe somewhere safer to spend the night? I’d be happy to volunteer two of the guest bedrooms in my palace—”

Alphys leaped to her feet, struck by an idea. “Oh! You two can stay with Undyne and me!”

Alucard could see the King raise an eyebrow at his friend’s outburst. Evidently, this was a little out-of-character for her.

“Uh, I-I know, there might not be much room there, but it’s not like you’ll find anywhere safer! And you can check out all the stuff we’ll be sending you with, like—like, oh, um—You really like black, don’t you, Alucard?”

Alucard was caught quite off-guard by Alphys’ enthusiasm. “Er—”

“Because I’ve been working with some vantablack carbon fiber and it looks like you’d really love it…”

Undyne patted the stout scientist on the head. “Hey, don’t get too carried away. But she’s right. We’re just a few blocks away from the museum—we could _walk_ there.”

Alucard looked at Yoko. Yoko shrugged. “That would be fine by us,” he decided.

–

The museum was in the heart of Grassland, the comparatively-quiet suburbs of the far more metropolitan mountainside. The sun had set, and the streets were lit only by soft streetlamps and the light from front porch after front porch, window after window of the terraced houses lining the roads.

It was almost idyllic, if suburban sprawl could be idyllic, and it was night, Alucard’s favorite time of day. The time when he could walk almost as a ghost and vanish into the shadows, silent, invisible. It was his element. The cool night air—that was his home.

A part of him wanted to shed this mask he’d been bound to, to spread leather wings and take flight.

But, try as he might, he found himself unable to suppress a yawn. It dawned on him, with growing discomfort, that sticking so long to the relentless schedule of the human world was making him—horror of horrors— _diurnal._

“So, what’s Dracula’s castle like, anyway?” Undyne pondered. “Dusty? Full of dead things?”

Alucard nodded. “Yes. To both. But it’s also… as if it were alive. Like a person. Castlevania has inner organs. It changes, reshapes itself. At times it even seems to have moods.”

“Wonderful. A house with feelings.”

“ _Oh, it has much more than feelings.”_ A cold drawl snaked through the air, carried on the wind. Alucard had heard that voice before, and recently, too—somewhere at the Agency headquarters, perhaps. _“But I’m sure_ _Alucard’s_ _gone and told you everything, hasn’t he?”_

There was a flutter of a thousand tiny wings all around, filling the air. Bats. _No, not bats,_ Alucard corrected himself as he focused his darkness-honed eyes on the whirl of wings— _Birds._

Red-wing blackbirds, by the looks of it—the fluttering black wings left arcs of yellow and red in the air.

The winged animals flew into the center of the street in front of the entourage, joining in a vortex that coalesced into the shape of a man. A man in a long, black cloak, with large, tassled crimson epaulettes flanking a pale, beaky face.

A whorl of birds — when it was done with bats, it was a classic vampire entrance, albeit a bit too ostentatious for Alucard’s preferences.

Undyne nudged Alucard in the ribs. “This guy a friend of yours, Alucard?”

This man was with the rogue Agency, and was far from friendly. “I doubt it.” Alucard cursed his luck. He was carrying no weapons save for a small knife concealed in his suit jacket.

“I didn’t think you’d find a way into the eclipse from here,” the stranger continued, “but you and your companion always have been full of surprises…”

_How had he been spying on us? The birds…?_

“Whoever you are,” Asriel called out to the blackbird man, “you’d better get out of the streets. This isn’t Victorian London.”

The stranger held up his hands. “Oh, of course, I beg your pardon. I haven’t introduced myself. I am Black E—”

The captain rushed at him again with a flurry of jabs. These the man dodged, birds detaching himself from his body mass where Undyne’s punches would have landed and reattaching themselves seconds later. Black feathers fluttered through the air.

A flash of lightning, followed by a roaring thunderclap, split the road in twain as a long spear made of coalesced lightning formed in Undyne’s hands. She was faster with the spear than with her fists, forcing the birdman to disperse his entire body into his flock.

The flock reformed behind the Captain, which she’d expected, and she jabbed backward with the butt of her aquamarine spear, catching the birdman right on the jaw. The force of the impact lifted him about a foot off the ground, and his body flew apart into a whorl of birds.

“As I was saying,” the man continued, his body reforming on top of a streetlamp on which he perched precariously, “I am Black Emperor.” He took a theatrical bow. “And I come with a dire warning.”

Black Emperor fished inside his massive black cloak and pulled out a fistful of glass vials. In the darkness, they looked almost black. “If the two of you bring so much as a mouse with you to Castlevania, more than just this street will run red with blood!”

With that, Black Emperor threw the vials into the street and vanished into the night. The vials shattered on the asphalt, leaving puddles of blood in the street. Four gaunt men—man-like creatures—rose from the puddles, clad in red suits, with spiny blades snaking off their arms.

Alucard drew the knife from its hiding place on his person and buried it in the nearest homunculus’ chest, throwing up a shower of blood. It staggered backward and jabbed at Alucard, but missed. Pulling the knife free, Alucard used it to parry the homunculus’ next strike and knocked the red-suited man’s blade aside, leaving its chest unprotected, and drove his knee into the attacker’s stomach.

He despised such boorish methods, but he would get over it.

The blood homunculus staggered back, its blood sword taking the form of a wicked parody of a thin fencing epee, and jabbed at Alucard, keeping its body in an _en garde_ fencing pose to minimize its profile. Alucard could easily parry the attacker’s lunges with his short knife, but the lack of range put him at an offensive disadvantage.

He wormed his way past the red-suited homunculus’ lunges, grabbed the homunculus by the sword arm, twisted it, and brought it down over his knee, as if to snap the bones in the forearm like a twig. It didn’t work—Alucard wasn’t sure if these things _had_ bones. They seemed to be mere sacks of blood.

–

It hadn’t been hard to convince Alphys to add a “rocket punch” feature to the arm she’d made to replace the one Undyne had lost all those years ago. She’d simply said the words “rocket punch” and Alphys had nearly passed out from excitement. Per Undyne’s request, a strong carbon fiber wire made it easier for Undyne to reel in her hand, while microthrusters on the wrist gave her some modicum of control over its trajectory. Like the rest of her prostheses, the rocket hand’s microthrusters responded directly to electrical signals from her brain.

This literal trick up her sleeve gave Undyne far greater range than the blood-man could have expected, and Undyne was able to knock the creature onto its back with a single punch.

Another thunderclap split the air, and the lightning spear reformed in her grasp again. The spear was a product of the strong electromagnetic fields her innate magical abilities could generate. Unfortunately, this creature was using some sort of weird blood-sword instead of a metal sword she could just yank out of its hand (and try as she might, she’d never got the hang of manipulating the iron in blood—Alphys said it was impossible, but Undyne didn’t believe her yet).

When her prosthetic hand retracted into her wrist and snapped back into place, Undyne charged the man in red before it could fully rise to its feet, caught it in the chest with her spear, and kicked its legs out from under it. The bloody creature went down immediately, Undyne’s spear pinning it all the way through the ground, and the homunculus melted away like an ice cube in the summer sun.

–

As the man in red charged at King Asriel, it may have seemed that the unarmed king was at a distinct disadvantage. But when you were a creature of magic, you were never without a weapon, and Asriel had fire in his blood. Golden flames burst out of him, golden as the rays of the sun, and coalesced into a long staff. A variant of a spear, a partisan, which had a sharp crossguard at the base of its long blade. The ends of the crossguard curved up, like vestigial arms of a trident-in-the-making.

He hadn’t called forth this weapon in years, and just now, in this of all places, he realized for the first time how fitting it was for a politician to wield a _partisan._

Blood flowed freely from the homunculus’ hand and congealing into a twisted, spiny fencing foil made from what seemed to be a shiny red resin-like substance, but proved much harder—and sharper—than it appeared to be.

The heady high of combat: Asriel hadn’t felt it in _years._ All of the day’s stresses—all of the burdens of kingship and governing—melted away in the heat of battle. Complex thoughts of debate and discourse and diplomacy gave way to a single primitive directive: _survive._

Asriel parried the attack, sending up a shower of golden sparks, but with a flick of the wrist the homunculus’ blade ducked under Asriel’s. These man-like creatures seemed like automatons, but had enough semblance of thought and reason to execute skillful parries and ripostes.

But Asriel’s partisan had far greater reach, and before the tip of the homunculus’ blood blade could touch Asriel, the crossguard bit into the man in red’s opposite shoulder. Asriel thrust the partisan forward and down, pinning the homunculus against the asphalt. A twisting curl of steam rose from their shoulder where the burning blade bit into it.

The man in red wrenched its shoulder free, sending up a pressurized jet of blood like something from an old Kurosawa samurai flick. Asriel held up his arm and nearly avoided the blood spraying in his eye, fortunately affording him the visibility to avoid the homunculus’ next attack.

Out of the corner of his right eye, Asriel noticed his new friends having a bit of trouble parrying the lunges from the other blood-creature.

–

The homunculus’ next strike caught Alucard above the brow and drew blood. Blood poured from the cut, down his pale face and into his eye, halving his visibility. With another strike, the homunculus knocked the knife out of his hand. This human disguise of his was dampening his abilities more than he’d thought. Or maybe he was just getting tired—or careless.

Blood from the cut on his forehead trickled down his lips, and almost as if on reflex, his tongue darted out and licked the blood off. It was his own, so it didn’t provide much of a rush (drinking your own blood was both highly frowned upon by vampires and extremely counterproductive), but he still felt just the slightest bit rejuvenated. And that would be enough.

Yoko pushed back the other homunculus with a blast of fire from the sigil on her palm. The man in red fell back, its suit alight, before the witch folded her fingers in a different pattern over the sigil and hit it with a jet of frigid wind. The sudden change in temperature caused the homunculus’ skin to burst like a ripe pimple. But this homunculus, seemingly more resilient than the rest, stayed up, and Yoko’s outfit was quite impractical for prolonged combat.

“ _Alucard_ _! Catch!”_

Alucard looked up and saw a fiery sword sail through the air; the King had conjured it and thrown it at him. He caught it by the hilt just in time to parry the homunculus’ next strike. It was a rather simple longsword Asriel had formed out of fire, but it was well-balanced and quite light, almost like hardened air.

Alucard was not so good with knives, axes, whips, maces, and the like, although he would of course call himself proficient with such weapons. No, his real talents lay in swordplay, and long blades light enough to be wielded one-handed were his specialty. His next strike cleft the red-suited homunculus’ blood blade in twain, and in one fluid stroke, he severed three of the red-suited man’s limbs and its head, finally reducing this one to a pool of smoking blood.

Alucard caught the other homunculus on the backswing, cutting it neatly in half, then threw the sword forward, running the red-suited creature in front of Asriel through. It slumped over, its legs giving out as its body liquefied, and the fiery sword fell to the ground blade-first.

Yoko wiped the blood splatters from her face. “Ugh.”

“Y-you’ve got some red on you,” Alphys timidly pointed out to her.

That was it, then. Alucard paused to wipe the stinging blood out of his eye and stepped forward, pulling the fire blade he’d borrowed from the ground and giving it an experimental twirl with a flick of his wrist. The sword left elongated after-images in the air and a smell like gunpowder and burnt ozone in its wake.

“I like this sword, Your Majesty,” he told Asriel. “Will you be needing it back?”

Asriel smiled, and with a snap of his fingers, the partisan in his own hands as well as the sword Alucard held burst into a flurry of cold sparks that quickly faded away, leaving nothing of their existence behind but the telltale smell of smoke. “Sorry, buddy.”

Shame. He’d been hoping he could keep it.

Before they could move on, Asriel walked up to the nearest house, knocked on the front door, and told its occupant that there was nothing to worry about and everything was under control, and a cleaning crew would be along shortly to deal with the mess.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Worldbuilding! Fights! Japes! This chapter has it all!


	6. Crossing Paths, Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Alucard gets a new sword. Soma bids farewell to Japan. Asriel orders pizza.

“Given what we’ve just gone through,” Alucard said as Alphys fumbled for her house keys, “we should perhaps take off our shoes before we step inside.”

“No, no, it’s fine,” said Undyne. “I’ll just put some towels down. We’re pretty used to dealing with blood stains, given my line of work…”

Yoko knelt down on the front porch and began untying her boots. “So, who gets to use the shower first?”

“I’ll gladly defer to my compatriot,” said Alucard. “Beside, there are benefits to exclusively wearing black.” He reached up to feel the cut on his forehead. It had already disappeared, leaving nothing but smooth skin behind, thanks to his healing factor.

As a half-vampire, and one who’d curtailed his powers significantly with this awful seal tattooed on his heart at that, his body regenerated from injury noticeably slower than a full-blooded (pun intended) vampire, but still hundreds of times faster than any normal human. He was thankful that as far as casualties had gone, only he had suffered any injury.

Undyne darted in, vanishing into the foyer, and came back moments later with an armful of towels which she laid down on the carpeted floor. “There you go, guys! Stomp around all you like!”

“Actually, it’s getting a bit late,” Asriel said, “and I should be on my way back…”

“Oh, come on!” Undyne clapped him on the shoulder. “At least stay for a drink!”

Alucard gingerly stepped into the foyer, slipping off his shoes and leaving them by the door. Yoko did the same, and immediately asked for directions to the shower. She was a mess; the homunculus she’d fought had spat so much blood that she looked like the victim of a vindictive high school prom prank.

“What hotel are you and Ms. Belnades staying at?” Asriel asked Alucard. “I can ask them to have your luggage brought down.”

“The Lucky Seven. Room 044.” Before he continued, he tried to put himself back in the cloak-and-dagger mindset of a spy, although he wasn’t accustomed to it. “But don’t let them know we’re staying _here.”_ He thought for a moment. “Have it delivered next door, then bring it here.”

This was the house of the former Royal Scientist and the current Captain of the Guard, and it looked the part. Antique swords adorned the walls, and piles of machine parts littered the floor. In the living room was what looked like a naked and half-disassembled car parked on the carpet. Alucard liked the swords. They reminded him of home.

Alucard took a closer look at the makeshift workshop that was the living room. Crumpled in the corner was a suit of armor, seemingly vacant. Not antique armor, but something like the hood of a car, olive green, with a mail of carbon fiber weave underneath.

Alucard tapped on the dome-like helmet, and the suit jerked to life, its neck snapping upward. Set within the blackness of the helmet’s visor, a single red “eye” blazed to life with a _bwomm._ Alucard reflexively took a step back and reached for his knife, but the suit of armor made no further moves.

“Ah! S-so you’ve met Zach!” Alphys put herself in between Alucard and the robot and, reaching over, flicked a switch on the back of its neck. “Say hi, Zach! Undyne and I built him. He’s an automated sparring partner!”

“ _You replaced me with a robot?”_ Asriel asked Undyne.

“ _You’re the one who’s always too busy to go to the gym with me, Your Highness.”_

“Sparring?” Alucard’s curiosity was piqued. “Is it good with a sword?”

“Uh, well, he’d have to be! This is my wife we’re talking about!” Alphys put a scaly finger to her snout, her eyes lighting up even more than they already were. They were practically incandescent now. “Y-you like swords, don’t you, Alucard?”

Alucard nodded.

“So do we! We’re real sword fans here.”

Alucard could see that simply from a cursory glance around the house.

“Well, uh, I’ve got a sword to show you I think you’d _really_ like! Why don’t I go get it?”

Alucard was not one to turn down the promise of a sword he’d “really like.” With his assent, the former Royal Scientist made a dash for the staircase leading to the basement and came up with a sword unlike any Alucard had ever seen.

“It’s my experimental high-frequency pulse blade,” Alphys began to explain, and then she launched into an incredible litany of technical specifications, none of which sounded like any earthly tongue to Alucard (nor any of the several unearthly tongues he knew). “The hilt has a memory foam grip with a synthesized polymimetic cover, and the sheath uses high-yield zero-point panels and static capacitors to charge the sword’s internal battery…”

It was an unusual sort of katana in a sheath covered in black panels. The hilt was some synthetic substance with a sort of gel beneath it. Alucard’s fingers sank into it ever so slightly. The grip was incredible—with no slippage at all, Alucard felt as though this sword would only ever leave his hand by his choice. There was an oval button near his thumb; when he pressed it, a latch on the sheath snapped open and the sword ejected itself about an inch out of its housing.

Undyne butted in. “Ooh, is Alphys showing you _the sword?_ What do you think? Pretty cool, huh?”

Alucard pulled the blade free. It was of a dark metal, nearly black, with a faintly glittering edge, but the blade sparkled like it had distant stars trapped within. Hefting the sword, he found it quite light—not so much as Asriel’s ethereal weaponry, but substantially more so than a typical sword. The center of mass for the sword lay in the hilt. It would almost be too easy to swing, although in such a cluttered house Alucard wouldn’t dare attempt a demonstration. He did, however, give it a few experimental swishes through the air. The deep hum produced by the blade as it passed through the air was unearthly and sent a tingling shiver up his arm, and blue sparks crawled along the blade’s edge.

Alphys was still rattling off features. “The high-frequency vibrations are controlled by an accelerometer running along the back of the blade and kick in whenever the blade is subject to physical force…”

“Doctor, excuse me,” Alucard interjected. “Is there anything you wouldn’t mind me trying this out on?”

The scientist’s litany came to a stop much like a man stumbling over his feet. “Uh, yeah, sure. Try it out on Hizach. He won’t mind.”

Alucard turned to the olive-green robot and, with a single effortless slice of the blade, removed its head. The cut was so clean that the edges of the neck, where the head had been severed, were perfectly straight— _perfectly._

“We call it the Neo-Masamune!” Undyne shouted.

“W-well?” Alphys asked, beaming. “What do you think?”

“Would you mind some constructive criticism?”

“S-sure?”

Alucard felt the weight of the sword in his hands. It was a sword of the future through and through, as if it wanted desperately to fit in with the weapons that had rendered its ancestors obsolete. “The blade weighs almost nothing. Its mass is concentrated almost entirely within the hilt.”

“Yes, uh, that’s where the fusion m-microreactor sends its high-energy pulses through the blade—”

“A master, therefore, would have some difficulty adjusting to the weight issues. A novice, on the other hand, would adapt to it right away, having so little experience with other blades, and have at their immediate disposal a blade capable of almost unimaginable cutting power. Do you know the story of the swordsmiths Masamune and Muramasa?”

Both Alphys and Undyne thought for a moment. “We know they made good swords,” Undyne admitted.

“Although both were masters, Muramasa was still Masamune’s pupil, and toiled in his shadow. They competed over who could make the finer sword, and to test their blades’ might, they held their swords in a river,” Alucard explained, holding the so-called Neo-Masamune blade-down to demonstrate. “Muramasa’s blade cut through everything in its path. Fish, leaves, and even the water and air itself—effortlessly bisected.”

“Whoa. So how sharp was Masamune’s sword, then?” Undyne asked, taking a seat cross-legged on the floor.

“Masamune’s sword cut only the leaves, and turned aside the wind and water. Fish slid by the blade without so much as a scratch, let alone a drop of blood spilled.”

“Oh, I-I do know this story!” Alphys interjected. “I-it goes like—”

Alucard held up his hand.

“Sorry,” she said meekly.

Alucard went on. “Muramasa mocked his teacher’s seemingly-inferior craftsmanship. But having seen the competition between the two masters, a monk stepped forward and addressed the two of them. The first sword, he said, was bloodthirsty and evil, just as capable of cutting down butterflies as severing heads. But the second blade, Masamune’s blade, would not cut that which was innocent and undeserving.”

Undyne and Alphys were spellbound by Alucard’s tale. Yoko had often told him he could narrate a dictionary and make it sound compelling. Vampires tended to be very effective orators.

“You have invented the sharpest, lightest, and probably strongest blade I have ever seen,” Alucard concluded, “using undoubtedly the most advanced technology in the world. But it is no Masamune.” He declined to mention that he thought it gauche to name a sword after a swordsmith who had not made it.

“In addition, parts of the sword are, I believe, overdesigned.” Alucard slid the sword back into its scabbard, and the hilt locked into place. “There’s no need for an ejection mechanism—it only makes it harder to draw the blade when you find yourself in mortal peril.”

He handed the sword back to Alphys, but she pushed it back to him. “N-no, no, keep it. I think it’d be better in your hands, Alucard.” A thought struck her like a burst of lightning. “The next sword,” she said, “will be perfect! I’ll use an AI-augmented IFF chip to automatically dull the blade if…”

These monsters were so much friendlier than Alucard had ever expected. It was nearly surreal.

Yoko stepped back into the living room, freshly showered and wearing a thick forest-green bathrobe, her hair ensconced in a matching towel. There was a fish monogrammed on the robe. “Alucard, did I miss one of your stories? Oh, captain, I hope you don’t mind—”

Undyne waved her hand. “Nah, it’s fine. Looks good on you!” And then her attention was back on the sword. “Gonna give your new sword a new name, Alucard?”

“ _Look at you, Alucard,_ _”_ the young witch whispered. _“_ _You’re_ socializing.”

“ _Yes, I_ _suppose I am,”_ Alucard whispered back. “Now, our hosts have just graciously gifted me this unique sword.” He held it in front of his companion.

She whistled. “It looks like someone put the graphics card from a gaming PC on a torture rack and stuck a handle on it.”

“Yes,” said Alucard, although he had no idea what image Yoko was trying to create in his mind, as the phrase “gaming PC” meant little to him, and “graphics card” even less. “But it is quite sharp,” he continued, “and they want me to give it a name.”

“Well?”

“Since you fight vampires, you could call it the Vampire Killer,” Undyne suggested.

“Nah,” said Yoko. “That name’s taken.”

Alucard thought for a while. Yoko pulled out her phone. “What about Stormbringer? Night’s Edge? Black Omen? Ghostwalker?” She rattled off a few more names.

“H-hey, you’re using a name generator!” Alphys called out. “That’s cheating!”

“Yeah, when you name a sword, you name it from the heart!” Undyne thumped her chest. “The Facelifter,” she offered.

Yoko set her phone down sheepishly. “Uh… Dark… Lightbringer? I dunno. You guys and your swords are weird.”

Even the king joined in on the fun. “Stardust Requiem,” offered Asriel.

“Why’s everything about stars with you?” Undyne asked, giving the king a playful nudge.

“Have you _seen_ them lately?”

“Have _you?_ I didn’t know the view was so good from your office, Your Highness.”

Alucard mulled over the suggestions. They all seemed a bit… pretentious. Cool for the sake of cool. But this was a rather juvenile sword. Perhaps it deserved a juvenile name. “Stardust Omen?” he pronounced, just a bit unsure of himself.

Triumphant whoops rang throughout the house, and for a second Alucard nearly felt as though he must have done something wrong.

“This calls for a pizza!” Undyne announced. “Anyone have any dietary things going on? Vegetarian? Vegan? Gluten allergy?”

Alucard felt like a fish out of water as the monsters discussed pizza toppings like college students planning a party. What was next? A keg of beer?

Yoko shook her head. “Anything’s fine.”

Undyne pulled out her phone. “Pineapple okay with everyone?”

“Captain, as your king, I forbid it.” Asriel hung his violet cloak up on a headless suit of armor that had been repurposed into a coat-rack-slash-umbrella-holder.

“Come on, it’s good. Especially if you pair it with something salty or spicy!”

The king was resolute. He crossed his arms. “Undyne. If I see a single slice of pineapple on that pizza, I will demote you and have your replacement put you on latrine duty for a week.”

Undyne rolled her eye, along with most of her head, in the most gratuitous eye-roll Alucard had ever seen. “Ugh. Fine.”

Alucard continued to examine his new sword while the king and his friends argued over food like overgrown children. He had expected the king and his close friends to be more… _kingly_ than this.

“Can you order it with fresh basil?” Yoko asked.

“Ooh, _fresh_ basil. La-di—” Undyne scrolled through the app on her phone. “Huh. Actually, yes. So I’ve got basil, pepperoni, sausage, olives, hot peppers, and mushrooms. Anyone else have any requests?”

Alphys raised her hand. “A-anchovies on half!”

Undyne pressed a few more buttons. “All right, we’ve got a two extra-larges on their way. Half-hour wait. Anyone up for drinks?” She herded her guests to a slightly-uncluttered round table in the dining room, hurriedly sweeping a small contingent of empty plastic bottles off the table and pulling up a few extra chairs. “I’ve got my specialty.”

“I’ll have that,” said Asriel.

“I’ll have what His Majesty’s having,” said Yoko.

“Same,” said Alphys.

“Wine for me, if you have any,” Alucard opted.

“Three Bone Hurting Juices coming up!” Undyne dashed into the kitchen. “White wine okay? It’s all we have.”

Alucard nearly brought up that it wouldn’t pair quite so well with the pizza, but would rather not slight his hosts’ generosity. They seemed to be trying their best. “That would be fine.” Alucard took his seat next to Yoko.

“S-so, uh, Ms. Belnades?” Alphys asked, leaning across the table what little distance her small stature would allow. “That trick with the fire you did outside—that was pretty cool! Can you tell us how you did it?”

Yoko obliged, laying her right hand palm-up on the table and revealing the concentric broken circles tattooed across the lines of her palm. “It’s this. A pattern of magical seals.”

“I didn’t know any humans still knew magic,” Asriel admitted. “You know magic too, Alucard?”

“Yes,” he answered, “but not for the same reason as my colleague. I am—half human.” Normally, he wouldn’t admit it to people he’d just met, but this was strange enough company—and welcoming enough—to warrant a little honesty.

Undyne shrugged. “Nothing wrong with that, buddy. And the other half?”

“Would you find it alarming if I said I were half-vampire?”

Everyone else shrugged noncommittally, and given his present company, Alucard wasn’t surprised. Later, he’d learned that their culture had little reason to fear the undead—when these monsters fell, their bodies turned to dust, their souls shattered, and that was that (King Asriel Dreemurr had been a rather special case). Why fantasize in terror about the living dead when your species left no corpses to reanimate, your culture had no afterlife, and your next-door neighbor was a skeleton?

“My family has passed down these mystic arts for hundreds of years, although I see it more as a science,” Yoko explained. “In fact, Alucard was a good friend of one of my distant ancestors.”

“How old _are_ you, Alucard?” Undyne asked as she set down his wineglass and filled it almost to the brim. Alucard excused the gaffe. These monsters were clearly unaccustomed to entertaining high-class guests.

“About five hundred and fifty.”

Undyne whistled. “After that long, I bet you just stop counting, right?”

“You’ve been alive for a good chunk of modern history, then,” Asriel added, clearly impressed.

“To be fair,” Alucard admitted, “I’ve spent most of that time sleeping.”

“May I continue?” Yoko went on, curling her fingers inward and revealing arcane symbols etched onto each of her scarlet press-on nails. “The sigils on my fingernails each complete one of the magic circles on my palm. They’re partially of my own design. The index finger makes fire. The middle, ice; the ring finger, wind; and the pinkie makes lightning.”

“How versatile!” Alphys crowed. “And you can combine them, right?”

Yoko excitedly launched into a much more detailed explanation, much to the delight of the doctor.

Undyne came back with an armful of drinks, set them down around the table, and took a seat next to her wife, taking a second to peck her on the cheek. Alphys’ scales turned beet-red.

Yoko poked at the glass holding the so-called Bone Hurting Juice. It was brown and muddy, almost like coffee, and it _steamed._ Alucard had endured taverns of all shades of disrepute in his long life (the long-dead vampire slayer Trevor Belmont, who’d been in many ways his first friend, had favored them), but he had never laid eyes on a drink quite so repulsive.

“What’s in this?” Yoko asked as Undyne took a sip of her drink.

“Gin,” the captain said. “Vodka, scotch, hot sauce, coffee, tequila, whiskey, rum, more scotch…”

Yoko pulled out a pencil, swiftly traced a circle around the glass, and placed her thumbs and forefingers at four equidistant points around the glass, closing her eyes for a second. The circle allowed her to instantly read the entire composition of its contents—a truly useful skill for a spy wary of poisoned drinks. It never hurt to be too careful, after all.

Yoko may have had the powers of a witch, but she had the mind of a chemist (and the bachelors’ degree as well). In Alucard’s day she would have been an alchemist—and probably burned at the stake for it.

Alucard raised his wineglass to his nose and sniffed it. He’d have swirled it if it hadn’t been filled to the brim and risked spilling even in his steady hand. His heightened sense of smell alone was enough to detect any traces of poison. The wine had a strong hint of apples, but was clean.

“Sorry. Just curious. You forgot to mention the chocolate syrup,” Yoko said, opening her eyes. She picked up the glass, and Alucard couldn’t help but notice that she seemed much warier of drinking it now, despite finding no evidence of foul play. “Shall we toast?”

Asriel raised his glass. “To new friends,” he toasted.

–

The pizza hadn’t even arrived yet, and the night was still young, but thanks to Undyne’s house specialty, several of her guests had already left the world of sobriety far, far behind.

Alucard sat back and listened quietly to his hosts’ conversation as Yoko, who’d started to fade after just a few sips, went on a slurred rant about her favorite dangerous chemical concoctions, using very colorful language to describe nitrogen atoms. He was thankful he’d stuck with wine. He had a very high tolerance, owing to his half-vampire lineage, but it seemed the monsters of Mount Ebott tolerated alcohol far better than even he could.

The door buzzer went off. It must have been the pizza, but Alucard tensed up nonetheless, just in case it was another threat.

Asriel stood up. “I’ll get it.” He headed out of the dining room and came back a minute later with two large cardboard boxes in his hands. “Pizza’s here.” After he cracked open the boxes, revealing two magnificent, cheesy, greasy pizzas, he checked his phone.

Alphys peered at the pizza. “Uh, it looks like they forgot to cut it.”

“I told ‘em not to,” Undyne retorted. _“We_ have to cut it! With Alucard’s new sword!” She emphatically banged on the table, rattling the dishware.

Yoko rubbed her tired eyes. “What?” she mumbled.

“I’ve baptized a blade in blood,” Alucard admitted, “but never in tomato sauce.”

“First time for everything!” Undyne rushed into the living room and came out seconds later with the sword, pressing it into Alucard’s hands. “Cut the pizza! _Cut the pizza!_ _”_

 _These monsters are friendly,_ Alucard thought, _but quite mad, every single one of them._

Asriel put his phone away with a heavily affected sigh of resignation. “You know, I’m sorry about the pineapple thing. It’s getting late—I should probably head back home now. I’ll meet you at the airport tomorrow morning.”

Undyne made a pained expression. “Come on, bro. The night is still young! Besides, Toriel knows you like to work late.”

“No, I should go. I said I’d come right home. Spend time with the family.”

The whole table groaned.

“When did _you_ screw your head on straight? Besides, you’re _already_ spending time with family, aren’t you? And at least stay for one slice!” the captain protested, her red-tipped fins drooping. “It’d be rude not to.”

Yoko raised her hand and giggled. “While we’re christianing— _christening_ the blade, maybe you could use it to knight us!”

“No, really, I—just five more minutes.” Asriel relented, returning to his chair, and Alucard took the sword and stood tall.

He gingerly touched the blade to the steaming pizza. Alucard worried that if he applied anything lighter than a feather’s touch, it would cut through not only the pizza, but the table as well, and so he drew the tip of the blade across the pizza with the utmost of care and pulled the blade away, long strings of melted cheese pulling away with it to the sound of raucous applause.

Alucard took a slice of the pizza and tried it. It was one of the slices with anchovies. Yoko had told him they were an acquired taste while explaining pizza to him. He had yet to acquire it, but he ate it anyway.

–

On the other side of the world, twelve hours ahead of the Kingdom of Mount Ebott, the night was not young. In fact, it was around 10 AM.

Fripp saw Soma Cruz off at the airport, infinitely glad to see him leave. _He’d have been a thorn in our side, no doubt about that,_ he thought as he rubbed his still-sore jaw. The brat was trouble, but soon enough he’d be on the other side of the planet with the rest of the troublemakers when the eclipse passed over the Hakuba Shrine.

He watched Soma walk into the terminal, and was just about to pull away when his phone buzzed. “Hello?”

“ _King Crimson, this is Black Emperor.”_

“Hey, Black Emperor. How’re the crows flying?”

“ _Could be better. Listen, what are you up to right now?”_

“Just dropped the latest fly in our ointment off at the airport.”

“ _Oh? Soma Cruz, huh? Where’re we sending him?”_

“Uh…” Fripp looked up the ticket he’d bought on his phone, while Black Emperor clucked impatiently. “He asked us to send him to Ebott International Airport, so I put him on the first flight there.”

There was a pregnant pause on the other end of the line. _“_ _Dammit, Fripp._ _”_

Fripp’s stomach sank. What was it _this_ time? “…Something wrong?”

“ _Yeah, so, uh…”_ Black Emperor took a deep breath. _“_ _That’s Ebott as in the mountain_ _, right?”_

Fripp racked his brain. “I think so.” He realized an instant later—Mount Ebott. _T_ _hat_ was where Solomon had stranded the two other people they’d needed out of the way. And based on the information Fripp had collected, Soma might be by far the most dangerous of the three to Solomon’s plans.

“ _I’ve been keeping tabs on Alucard and Belnades. I think you’re gonna want to hear what they found out.”_ The tone in Black Emperor’s voice suggested exactly the opposite.

“I don’t think I do, actually,” Fripp said with a sigh, “but hit me.”

“ _The current thorns in our side are hobnobbing with_ the King _.”_

“King—Y-you mean the same King Asriel who—didn’t he blow up a tank with his mind or something?”

“ _It was a giant flying death machine, actually. He did it when he was_ fifteen.”

“Shit.” And he was sending the kid right into his hands! _Well, this plan is going to hell in a handbasket._ “Shit, shit, _shit!”_ He pounded on the steering wheel, accidentally loosing a blast from the car’s horn and catching a few dirty looks from passers-by.

“ _Whoa there. Calm yourself down. We can still salvage this.”_

“Yeah. I’ll get in there and kill the kid before his plane takes off.” Fripp started to pull away from the terminal. “Dammit! Now I’ll have to find a spot in the parking garage!”

“ _What? No, you simpleton—don’t just shoot him or slit his throat in the restroom! I’m sure a man of your talents can find a more, um… subtle method? Maybe get someone who can’t get caught to do it for you?”_

“Yeah.” Fripp nodded. He knew exactly what Black Emperor was suggesting, and if he’d been in a less panicked state of mind, he’d surely have thought of it himself.

“ _And, well, if you screw up, I’d be happy to handle the kid for you.”_

“Pfft. _If_ I screw up. What about Alucard and Belnades?”

“ _This is_ Alucard _we’re talking about. If I get within a foot of him I’ll be mincemeat.”_

“And the King’ll make roast pheasant out of you.”

“ _Besides, boss says it doesn’t matter if_ they _get in, just so long as Soma_ doesn’t. _I won’t let the others get close to him.”_

“Great.” Gavin Fripp hung up, rubbed his eyes, and set out to find a parking spot.

He tailed the kid to his gate (he’d had to buy a seat on another plane to get through security, but it wasn’t as if money was any object to his people), then ducked into the nearest restroom. He took a glass vial from out of his coat and, with the pricking of his thumb, filled the vial up to the top and stoppered it with a cork.

While Soma was checking his phone, Fripp slipped the vial into the kid’s backpack and walked away, out of the gate, out of the terminal, through security and out of the airport. Soma never even saw him. Funnily enough, the flight he’d bought a seat for would have been one seat overbooked if he’d flown on it.

It would only take a bit of turbulence to make the vial shatter and let loose his homunculus during the plane ride. _Flight arrives from Japan with its cabin mysteriously empty and covered in blood._ That _would be a story worth seeing on the evening news,_ he mused.

Once he was on the road, Fripp pulled out his phone and made a call to his boss. “King Solomon, this is King Crimson. Mission accomplished.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As those of you who've read my last fic might already know, it is extremely difficult for me to focus on plot when things like pizza parties are just so much more fun to write.


	7. One More Red Nightmare, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Asriel confronts Chara.

Asriel had hated to leave so suddenly—and he could tell Undyne hadn’t been happy about it, either. They hadn’t hung out since… when _had_ they last spent time together outside of Parliament? Undyne and Alphys’ housewarming party? _No, that couldn’t have been it. That was almost_ _two_ years _ago._ But try as he might, he couldn’t think of another time.

But the flash drive in his pocket—Chara’s flash drive—had been burning a hole in his pocket all night. He needed to know what kind of person this alternate-universe Chara was—and what kind of world they had left.

The lights were still on at home when Asriel cracked open the front door. “Mom? Chara?”

Toriel stood up from her rocking chair in the living room, setting aside a thick book and taking off her half-moon reading glasses. “Asriel! You’re home late.”

“I was at the afterparty,” Asriel said, hanging his cloak on the coat rack and trying to keep the few spatters of dried blood on it out of sight. “I, uh, hung out with Undyne and Alphys a bit.”

“You _hung out!?”_ Toriel’s shock made Asriel wonder if he were really _that_ much of a loner.

“Just a bit.” Asriel looked around. The house was quiet, and seemed empty, excepting for the former Queen. “Where’s Chara?”

“Well, after we streamed your speech and the awards ceremony, we watched the news for a bit. That awful man came on again.”

“And who might that be this time?” Toriel called many people awful, usually because they occupied that perfect intersection on the Venn diagram of “stupid,” “cruel,” and “politician.”

“Edison something or other. The one who wants to be president.”

“The ‘Spanglegate’ guy.”

“That’s the one. Seeing him seemed to give Chara quite a start, though. They said they needed some fresh air and went out for a walk. I offered to accompany them, but they insisted they wanted to be left alone.” She wrung her paws. “I do hope they’re okay.”

Asriel gave his mother a hug. “They’ll be fine, Mom. Why don’t you head off to bed, and I’ll stay up and keep an eye out for them?”

“Thank you, Asriel,” she sniffed, returning his embrace. “Oh, and by the way, Chara _adored_ your speech.” She beamed with, although she still couldn’t quite hide the worry written on her face. “I do not think they would ever admit it,” she said, “but I suspect it brought them close to tears.”

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Oh, and of course,” Toriel added as she began to make her way upstairs, “I thought you did a very good job as well.”

With the palace to himself, Asriel got his laptop, plugged in Chara’s USB drive, and started reading where he’d left off.

The early speeches were quite idealistic, like the coronation speech had been… but nevertheless, it seemed the kingdom’s relationship with the human world soon began to show signs of stress:

_My Royal Subjects:_

_The man who stands before you here today, a one Archer Sheridan, founder and chief executive officer of a certain Sheridan Enterprises, stands before you a guilty man. The Royal Court has found him guilty of the highest possible crimes and misdemeanors against our humble kingdom. His crimes, all toward the goal of total economic exploitation of the kingdom and its people, can only be described as an act of war and terrorism against the Crown._

_The court has found that Mr. Sheridan’s plot to monopolize our most profitable and necessary industries would have made a vassal state out of our kingdom, and therefore represented a clear and present existential threat to our society as a whole._

_One can only hope that Mr. Sheridan’s punishment will serve as a warning to all those who would attempt to use the invisible hand of the free market to clasp any sentient being, be they monster or human, in invisible irons…_

So _that_ was what Chara had meant when they’d discussed what they would have done to Morton Kaine earlier today. It seemed awfully heavy-handed.

“Hardly behavior befitting a king, is it?”

Asriel nearly jumped out of his skin. Chara had been right behind him—for how long?

“Not _my_ behavior, of course,” said Chara, as they reached over Asriel’s shoulder and pulled the flash drive out of the computer, ignoring the warning messages popping up on the screen. They pocketed the drive. “The Asriel I knew didn’t steal from his siblings… or rifle through their personal belongings without permission.”

“I—” Asriel gathered his thoughts. “I needed to know.”

“Needed to know… what?”

“Anything. Who you were. Why you were here.”

“You _know_ who I am.”

“I couldn’t be sure.”

Chara cocked their head, the glare in their eyes red and fiery. “What were you expecting to find?”

Asriel struggled for an answer.

–

Soma was used to flying being cramped, kind of dingy, and unpleasant overall, especially for twelve-hour transpacific flights. But the first-class cabin was an entirely different world. It was wide and spacious, each passenger having their own little cubicle with a TV screen, a dining table, a chair that could recline all the way, a pillow, blankets, the works. No aisle or middle seats—only window seats. He could swear the lights were brighter and the walls were whiter.

It was like going to a theater with leather recliners after a lifetime of sticky seats. First-class air travel was a luxury liner for the skies. He could get used to this.

Soma stowed his backpack in the overhead compartment, settled into his seat, and prepared to spend the next twelve hours airborne.

A flight attendant came by, offered to take his jacket, and introduced himself. “Hello,” he said with a bow. “My name is Takahashi, and I’ll be taking care of you this flight. Can I start you off for something to drink?”

“Vodka martini. Shaken, not stirred,” Soma answered in his best Sean Connery voice.

“Can I see some ID, sir?”

“Oh, um, no, I wasn’t serious,” he backpedaled. “Can I get Coke?”

“For the whole flight?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.”

Takahashi left with his coat and came back with a glass of Coke—an actual _glass._ “There’s a tablet under your desk. You can use it to order dinner when you’re ready.”

“ _Dinner?”_

Soma felt for the tablet under the swing-out dining table and pulled it out. The menu was already on the touchscreen, and he scrolled through it. French bread. Filet mignon. Porterhouse steak. Garden salad. Gourmet lettuce wraps. Chocolate lava cake.

His appetite, which had almost completely vanished over the past twenty-four hours of stress and heartache, came back with a vengeance.

 _And every dime I spend is coming from the bastards who put me on this plane?_ Soma couldn’t suppress his grin. “One of everything. But not all at once.”

“You can order at your own discretion, sir.”

“Oh. Right. Of course. Thank you.”

And soon, after another flight attendant went through safety instructions with the passengers, the plane took off, lurching into the sky and pulling down on Soma’s stomach as if he were on the world’s biggest and fastest elevator, and soon leveling out over the course of just a few minutes.

The airport, and the city surrounding it, soon dwindled into a glittering roadmap and fell from view, and the ground itself vanished as the plane broke the cloud barrier.

Soma found the noise-canceling headphones, shut out the sound of the cabin around him, and loaded up some tunes for the trip. The music surrounded him, old music, old enough to be his grandpa, but he loved it anyway. Bill Bruford’s drumming replaced the cacophony of the plane entirely with a frenzied percussive assault.

_Pan-American nightmare_

_Ten thousand feet fun-fair_

_Convinced that I don't care_

_It's safe as houses I swear…_

Soma hit pause. Not a very appropriate choice of song for this venue.

Ahead was a sea of clouds, and beneath that was the even deeper and vaster expanse of the Pacific Ocean. After just about ten or fifteen minutes of travel, the plane passed well beyond the reach of any cell phone towers, although the plane’s wi-fi would be excellent the whole trip. After about half an hour of travel, which he spent contemplating the clouds and watching the wing of the plane for gremlins, he was still getting messages on his phone.

_Soma, ur host family emailed us Where r you? Email me. Mom_

_hi soma!! J says hi too. well miss you!!!_ ((´д ｀ )) _but you will be in a good place_

_Soma Cruz, Text this number when the plane begins to land, and do not wander the terminal until we arrive. - Arikado_

_Soma why r u on a plane to Ebott Mt? Mina told us. Who is paying 4 your ticket? Email me. Mom_

_Soma Cruz, Ms. Belnades says to enjoy your flight as well. -Arikado_

_hi soma just a head up but i think your mom is mad @ you_ (⊙ ︿⊙✿ ) _sorry!_

He sighed, reclined his seat all the way back, and messaged Mina.

_Hey mina_

_hi! your host family really grilled on me_

_\+ i think they told yr actual family 2_

_Yeah they did_

_tried to stay quiet but they were very concerned!_ (.﹒︣︿﹒︣.)

_Yeah i figured_

_are you sure about this_

_Im 10000 miles in the air now so id say im pretty sure about this yeah_

_eclipse won’t be as fun w/o you…_

_Same_ (;n;)

_But think of it this way_

_When you see the ellipse_

_*eclipse_

_You’ll know_

_I’m watching it too_

_soma you won’t see the eclipse for 12 hours after i do_

_Oh right_

_earth is round remember?_

_Time zones_

_Well its still the same sun_

_And its still the same moon_

_And when you see it you can think_

“ _Wow somas going to see the same eclipse in 12 hours!”_

_rofl thanks soma_

_hope you can come back soon!_ (*⌒▽⌒*)θ～♪

He hoped so too— _If only so I can pay these assholes back with interest,_ he thought. _Nazi bastards—_

That’s right. He had to tell someone about that.

He started composing a message to Ms. Belnades, fingers flying across the touch keyboard.

_Hi ms belnades the man who attacked me and his boss had a symbol on their necks_

_Look up the “black sun” it was a symbol used by nazi occultists during the 1930s_

_Kind of a neopagan thing?_

_It was used in a castle where the highest ranking ss generals would meet and was meant to be the center of the new post-ww2 world order_

_Didn’t end up working out for them ofc_

_Anyway if these guys are nazis I am 1000% ok with fighting them if you need my help_ ;) ;) ;)

There. That ought to do it. He hoped his new friends appreciated his enthusiasm. Soma put his phone away, closed his eyes, and let the complete and utter silence afforded to him by his headphones to carry him to sleep.

–

“What,” Chara repeated, standing in front of Asriel and peering at the document in full view on Asriel’s computer, “were you expecting to find when you _stole my only possession from me_ and stuck it in your laptop?”

“Uh…” Asriel’s brain wasn’t working. The gears in his head weren’t turning. There was a chilling intensity behind Chara’s voice.

“You were, perhaps, expecting Bluebeard’s Castle?” Chara paced along the length of the study. “I’m sure you know the story. Long ago, a woman married a wealthy king by the name of Bluebeard. The king tells her, ‘You may go wherever you like in my castle, but never set foot in this one room.’ Eventually, curiosity gets the better of her, though, and she opens the door to the forbidden room. And there she finds the severed and preserved heads of dozens of women—all Bluebeard’s previous wives.”

Chara looked Asriel straight in the eye, and to his horror, Asriel found himself failing to meet their gaze. The gleam in their eyes—unholy. Unnatural. Or maybe he was just imagining it.

Visions in his head. Red eyes and sadistic laughter, but only when no one else was listening. Pain. Death. Dust, piles of it. Wind-whipped snowflakes frozen in the air. Black blood.

The cold, howling wind and mountain air. The throbbing pain in his freshly-broken arm, the smell of blood staining his fur. And his mother pushing him along, telling him to _run_ , before a sword ran through her back and burst out of her stomach and red eyes, red eyes behind her, the same red eyes that now bore into his eye…

Asriel felt his chest contract. His head grew light. He was having a relapse. _No._ He hadn’t had one in years. _No, not now—_

The displaced human’s voice rose. “Is that what you were expecting, Asriel?” They reached over, grabbing Asriel by the shoulder—

A feral snarl tore from the King’s throat as his mind regressed, drew back, ten years ago, further, to the night of howling wind. Unbidden, a golden partisan, a spear of flame, sprang into existence in his hands, and Chara stumbled backward, colliding with the bookshelf to their back as Asriel’s blade came within a fraction of an inch of their throat.

They held up their hands, their eyes wide and filled with terror. In all their life, never, _never_ , had they imagined their own brother would turn a weapon on them with such ferocity, and it was writ all over their face.

Asriel, his wits slowly returning to him, lowered the blade. But his pulse still pounded, and his breath still caught in his chest. _No,_ he told himself sternly, as if admonishing his inner child, _they are not Zero. They are not possessed. They are your sibling. They are your_ family.

Chara fell to the floor, their chest heaving. “How much did you see?”

“I—I’m sorry—What wasn’t I supposed to see?”

Chara took a deep, shuddering breath as they stood up on shaking legs. Their hair, disheveled, fell in front of their eyes. In only a span of a few seconds, they’d fallen to pieces—their posturing, however sinister it might have seemed to Asriel at the time, had been nothing but an illusion through and through. His sibling was a paper tiger.

“I suppose I owe you the truth.” Chara glanced at the floor. “I’ll spare you the details, but… my kingdom doesn’t exist anymore.”

“I’m sorry.” Asriel tossed aside his spear, letting it disperse into a shower of cold sparks before it could hit the floor, chastising himself for being so weak as to summon it so readily against his own family. “I’m so, so sorry…”

He patted his sibling on the back. “There, there,” Asriel said, and he picked them up, helping them to their feet. All the strength had drained out of them. “I’m sorry, Chara. Let’s get you to bed.”

They pulled away from him, collapsing back on the bed. _“Don’t leave me,”_ they muttered, dragging the blankets down and hoisting themselves up the length of the bed.

“Chara,” Asriel pointed out as his estranged sibling pulled the covers over themselves, “that’s _my—”_ He sighed, pulled up his desk chair closer to his bed, and took a seat. “Okay. It’s your bed tonight.” They’d always been a drama queen.

Asriel couldn’t help but recall when Chara had first come to the mountain. They’d been hurt, physically, by their fall into the depths of the monsters’ stone prison, but bore worse scars on the inside. For weeks, long after their broken bones had healed, that eight-year-old child said nary a word, not to anyone, until they’d finally opened up to Asriel and told him their name. And the rest, as the saying went, was history.

They were much older now, but Asriel could see that Chara was now just as fragile as they’d been all those uncountable years ago. They’d come to him to escape a painful life then, and they’d done the same now. What had _happened_ to them that was so horrid they couldn’t even speak of it?

Chara took a second to calm themselves. “Asriel, my dear brother… would it trouble you to get me something to drink?”

–

Asriel handed a mug of hot chocolate to Chara, who grasped it greedily and immediately began drinking from it, without a care for the temperature. “At the end, when I hid in the mountain,” they said in between sips in a hoarse, husky voice, “all I had to eat were ration packs. I had dozens of them, all of them with the same crackers, protein gruel, granola bars. And a little bit of chocolate.” They licked the cream mustache from their upper lip.

“Was there… a war?”

“Oh, no, no, I wouldn’t call it a war.” Chara shook their head. “Anyway, my first night, I piled up all the rations I could find, took the chocolate out of each pack, and gorged myself. Understand, I had no idea how long I would last down there, or if anyone would find me and drag me out. For all I knew, it could’ve been my last meal.” They finished the hot chocolate, down to the last drop, and handed the mug back to Asriel. “It was awful. Chalky, almost tasteless. But it was all I had.”

Asriel took hold of the mug. “Would you like more?”

It was as if they didn’t even hear his question. “You’ve got a fine kingdom here,” Chara said, weariness well beyond their years weighing down their words. But there was a bitter edge there, too. “A fine kingdom. Like… a dream. I hope you can keep it safe better than I could.”

“I try my best. I’m sure you did, too.” _Was that the right thing to say?_ “I-I mean—”

“I don’t know how I got here,” Chara continued, a faraway look flitting across their face. “Perhaps I just wished hard enough. Or maybe this is Heaven.”

“You flatter me.”

“No, no, I mean it. You’d tell me if I were dead, right? If this were Heaven? _T_ _he undiscovered country, from whose bourn no traveler returns?_ _”_

“Nope. You’re as alive as I am.” Considering they’d both come back from the dead once already…

Chara laughed and drew their sheets tighter around them. “I wonder, what does tomorrow have in store for us here in this idyllic realm? Another farmers’ market? Or perhaps a production of Shakespeare in the park?”

Seeing his sibling despairing so, Asriel couldn’t resist a little joke to lighten the mood. “Actually, in this timeline it’s been proven that Christopher Marlowe wrote the majority of Shakespeare’s plays.” He suppressed a snicker. “So it’s Marlowe in the park.”

Chara stabbed a finger at Asriel. _“Don’t you even_ joke _about that,”_ they hissed. “I would rather live in a bombed-out husk of a world where Shakespeare was Shakespeare, Asriel, than a world teeming with life in which that absurd, classist theory was even the _least_ bit plausible.”

Asriel held up his hands. “I’m sorry. I had no idea you took Shakespeare so seriously. But I guess it explains why you were reciting lines from it in your sleep last night.”

Chara’s mouth gaped open. “W-was I?”

“Yeah. _King Lear,_ I think.”

Chara regained their composure and smiled. “You know Shakespeare. And to think, you were never the bookish one when we were growing up.”

“I don’t recall _you_ being so keen to stick your nose in a book either.”

Chara wrinkled their nose. “You never did have a keen memory. I think I must’ve read every soggy, moss-eaten book in the kingdom.”

“When? We were always playing outside. You’d run around and try to go where you shouldn’t.”

“Oh, yes, of course I would.”

“Remember when we’d look at the diamonds in the ceiling and make up constellations?”

“I—” Chara paused, furrowing their brow. “I don’t remember. But we had snowball fights all the time in Snowdin.”

Asriel remembered _those._ “And we’d build the tallest snowdogs we could. But do you remember,” Asriel said, insistently, “that time you got me to wrestle you, and I hit you on the cheek by accident, and Mom was furious? You said you’d cherish the scars forever, because they made you look cool. But they healed in a week. You were so disappointed.”

Chara raised a finger, hesitantly, to their cheek, as if tracing an old wound. “That… oh, oh, yes, I remember that!” They laughed. “We were really something, weren’t we, old pal?”

They weren’t the Chara Asriel had grown up with. They’d been someone else’s Chara, a different Asriel’s childhood playmate, and whatever had been done to them, whatever they’d done, the scars were far too fresh to pick at. But this Chara was still the closest he’d get to his long-lost sibling.

Asriel ruffled their hair. “We sure were. Now what do you say tomorrow we make some new memories together?”

“Oh, no, I’m sure you have so much work to do…”

“No, no, it’s nothing. Everyone tells me I spend too much time working anyway. I can take a break.”

“They said the same thing about me.” Chara nodded. “Our kind. We work so hard, we dig our own graves.” They pulled themselves out of bed. “I’m guessing you’ll want your bed back?”

“You’ll be okay on your own tonight? I’d be fine with camping out in here.”

“Heaven forbid I ask _you_ to sleep on the floor! I don’t think I’ll be performing any nocturnal reenactments of the Battle of Agincourt tonight.” Chara smiled wryly. “You sleep well tonight.”

–

Soma was sitting up when he woke up, which was strange, because he’d _definitely_ put his seat all the way back. He fumbled for the button to recline the chair again, and when his fingers brushed gold filigree, he drew his finger away, puzzled. The tips of his fingers came away red and sticky with blood.

The first class cabin had really gotten a makeover while he’d been asleep. Instead of a window, there was a grotesque stone gargoyle to his right, and another matching gargoyle to his left. The ceiling was high and vaulted and made of crumbling stone, while a long blood-red carpet stretched across the floor, flanked by flickering candles on tall, slender mounts.

Wait a minute. This wasn’t the plane at all!

Soma noticed he had a glass in one hand. A wineglass, cradled lazily between his fingers. It was a deep, dark burgundy, but lacked the purplish hue of red wine, and there was something oddly viscous about the way it swished in the glass. He raised it to his face and took a sniff, and his nose was immediately assaulted with an overpowering odor.

The thick, coppery smell of blood filled his nostrils. It was sickening but, still, oddly alluring… His arm lifted, pushing the wineglass to his lips. Like a prisoner in his own body, he couldn’t resist the movements forced on him. A rank stench, copper mixed with putrid meat, singed the hair in his nose. He felt his gorge rise as the fresh blood sloshed against his lips, and despite the bile percolating deep in his throat, he opened his mouth and let this strange wine fill his mouth.

He choked it down. It was _awful,_ the vilest thing he’d ever drank, an affront to his entire being, an evil liquid that assaulted his tongue and fought with every reflex in his body on the way down his gullet. But it was… _good._ Intoxicating. It left a pleasant buzz in his head and a tingling throughout his body, like the heady, pleasurable feeling he’d felt when that strange light had come upon him.

And when he looked at the empty crystal glass, stained with thin streaks of red, he caught a glimpse of his distorted reflection and saw two eyes burning like hot coals.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, that's one mystery solved, and we haven't even gotten to Dracula's castle yet.


	8. One More Red Nightmare, Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Soma picks up a new skill, and his plane goes down in history. Or, at the very least, goes down.

Soma Cruz awoke from his horrible dream and found himself once again safe in the first-class accouterments of the plane carrying him across the Pacific. His mouth felt and tasted like cotton, which was a welcome relief given the macabre subject of his dreams.

A cursory glance at his phone showed that he’d been asleep for a good portion of his trip. Doing some basic math in his head, it was probably a little past eight in the morning at his destination. He was hungry, and thirsty, though (he hoped) not for blood.

Seeing he was awake, the flight attendant gave him another glass of Coke, and he downed it like a man who’d crossed a desert, and then he’d rifled through the dinner menu, ordered a salad and a steak…

His index finger left a red smear on the touchscreen. Had he pricked his finger on something? He set the tablet back and hurried to the bathroom.

Unfortunately, the first class restroom was just as classless as the restroom in coach. On airlines, toilets, it seems, were the great equalizer.

Soma washed his hand in the sink, scrubbed at it, then tore a square of tissue and wrapped it around the tip of his finger. But the blood dripped down, rather than sticking to the tissue, and traced dark red lines down his hand. He held it over the stainless steel sink and watched splotches of blood splatter onto the burnished surface.

“What is this Lady Macbeth shit?” he wondered aloud. Was he still dreaming?

The blood crawled across his skin, creeping along like the goddamn Venom symbiote…  _ No,  _ Carnage _ was the red one.  _ He laughed and wondered if he was still dreaming.

Soma’s skin tingled, and curved arcs of congealed and hardened blood leaped out of his wrist, curling around his hand and jutting out a spiny, wicked-looking spike. He quickly held his hand so that the blade shot up, its tip just barely nicking the ceiling of the restroom.

_ Holy shit. _ He didn’t know if he’d said it or just thought it. He collapsed onto the toilet, looking at the hard, resin-like blade.

_ This was the same sword that man in the red suit tried to kill me with _ , Soma realized. He remembered the red-orange orb that had shot from the attacker’s body and sank into his chest. Was he… infected?  _ Possessed? _

“ _Go away,”_ he hissed at the bloody blade. _“Go away. Vanish. Disappear.”_

The bloody sword did none of those things.

Was he going to have to spend the next few hours in this bathroom with a sword made of blood jutting out of his wrist?

He still had his phone with him. He’d text Arikado. Arikado was a spooky guy who probably saw this kind of stuff on the reg—he’d asked Soma about the man melting into a bloody puddle in the first place, after all.

Soma pulled out his phone and struggled to type out a text message with his handicap, thanking the lord in heaven for auto-correct.

_Hey Arikado this is going to sound messed up but a giant blood sword just shot out of my arm and i dont know how to make it go away please advice_

Although Arikado hadn’t responded to Soma’s earlier texts, he replied to this one almost instantly.

_Soma Cruz,What? -Arikado_

_Its like this giant spike made out of smaller spikes made out of blood_

_Soma Cruz, How are you doing this? -Arikado_

_IF I KNEW HOW I WOULDN’T NEED YOUR HELP TO UNDO IT_

_Soma Cruz, All caps is like shouting. Please do not._

_Did anything strange happen to you when that man in the red suit attacked you? -Arikado_

Other than getting attacked by a man with a sword who turned into a puddle when he died, which was plenty strange on its own?

_Yeah there was a weird ball of light that went inside me_

_Arikado am i infected with something_

_Am i possessed_

_Soma Cruz, I believe you might have that creature’s soul inside you -Arikado_

_what_

Soma’s phone started to buzz. Arikado must be calling him over the plane’s wi-fi. He took the call.

“Hello?”

It was indeed Arikado on the other end.  _“Hello, Soma Cruz. This is Arikado. You seem distressed.”_

“Yes. Yes, very. Do I really have another person’s soul inside of me?”

“ _No. Not another person.”_

“Oh, thanks, that’s a relief.”

“ _I believe that when you defeated that creature, you absorbed its soul and gained its power.”_

“What? _How?”_

“ _You may have had this ability all your life, and merely lacked the need to use it until just a few days ago. Once you claimed your first soul, your power must have taken some time to quicken.”_

So he was born as some kind of soul-stealing… thing? “Am I…”

“ _Human? Of course.”_

Soma sighed in relief. If a guy as weird as Arikado said he was human, it must be true. “Okay. All right, Spooky Mulder. How do I turn this off?”

“ _Are you familiar with the concept of the method of loci, otherwise known as the ‘palace of the mind?’”_

“Uh… no.”

“ _It is primarily used to enhance one’s memory. You imagine a room, or even an entire house, with items inside the house representing particular things you would like to remember. Childhood memories, phone numbers, digits of pi, for example.”_

“Sounds complicated.”

“ _It does, but anybody who boasts perfect or ‘photographic’ recall swears by it. I believe you might find it useful here. I will guide you through the process. Now, clear your mind, calm yourself, and imagine a room.”_

“What kind of room?”

“ _Any room. The more suited for storing information, the better.”_ Arikado’s voice was cool, calm, sonorous, almost hypnotic, and just hearing it started to set Soma’s mind at ease.

Soma closed his eyes, took a few deep breaths, and pictured a library. A big library, with big, tall oak shelves, and hardwood floors, and vaulted ceilings. He made it as real as possible—focused on the dusty smell, the pattern of whorls on the lacquered wooden shelves and the floorboards, of books with crinkly plastic lining the covers and pages whose edges had turned yellow and green and pink from age.

“Got it.”

“ _Now make an empty shelf in that room. Or a cabinet. Or a treasure chest.”_

Soma pictured one of the many shelves in the library cleared of books, and it was done.

“ _Now, picture the soul of the creature you defeated. The one you’re calling on right now. Imagine it as a precious jewel, or a valuable trinket, or a phial of elixir.”_

Soma did so, guided by Arikado’s voice. He pictured the soul that had flown into him leaving his body, the blood covering his right hand leaping off of his skin, and in his mind palace, it happened. The blood jumped off of his hand and changed its shape, becoming a twisted vial of blown glass, stoppered with a cork and filled with red liquid. Soma grabbed it out of the air and placed it on the empty shelf.

As Soma set the vial on the empty shelf, he noticed a mirror hanging from a nearby wall out of the corner of his eye—one he hadn’t conjured into this mindscape, at least not consciously. He caught sight of his reflection in it and couldn’t help but feel there was something odd about the Soma he saw reflected in that mirror.

Something different about the eyes, the mouth, his cheeks, the shape of his jawline. Even his hair  and skin .  Still the same locks of shock-white hair, still the same pale fawn-brown skin—but somehow more vivid. Soma couldn’t put his finger on  _what_ had changed in this mirror, but looking at it made it feel like there was a splinter  stuck in his mind.

No, not  _odd._

He stepped closer, holding out his hand, as the altered reflection did the same, and his fingertips met his reflection’s. It wasn’t that there was anything _off_ about Soma’s reflection,  he realized as he stared into his own dark eyes. In fact, if anything, there was something _on_ about it. It was more him than _him,_ more real than _real._

“ _Soma.”_

Arikado’s voice snapped Soma out of the trance he’d fallen into. “Y-yes?”

“ _Remember where you put it.”_

“Got it.”

“ _Now, open your eyes.”_

Soma opened his eyes, half-expecting the blood blade to still be bound to his hand… but it was gone. It was gone! He was free! “Arikado, it worked!”

“ _Congratulations, Soma Cruz. Now, whenever you wish to call upon the power you’ve obtained, your mind palace will be there for you. Feel free to use it for other purposes, as well.”_

“Thanks, Mr. Arikado.” Soma took a deep breath. His hand was still shaking from nerves, even though everything had worked out. “I owe you one.”

“ _Think nothing of it. Enjoy the rest of your flight.”_

“Thanks, you too. Uh, wait, um—”

Arikado had already hung up.

Soma glanced at himself in the bathroom mirror and realized, unnerved, that his reflection somehow looked less like him than the one he’d seen inside his imaginary library.

He returned to his seat, just in time for a flight attendant to deliver his dinner. It all looked fresh—not a wilted leaf among them in the salad. The steak was tender and juicy and just the right amount of reddish-pink.

The food was delicious, even more so given that his nerves were still frazzled from the incident in the bathroom. Soma suspected there must be a fully-stocked galley somewhere on the plane. It beggared belief, but why not? It was so good, and they let him order it whenever he pleased, and the plane seemed to have everything else after all.

This was  _ real  _ airplane food. Soma would never go back to peanuts  and pretzels again.

–

Asriel woke up on the couch in the living room, not his bed, with a splitting headache. It felt like his horns had inverted and were piercing his brain. He gritted his teeth, rubbed his eye, and squinted blearily at his phone lying on the coffee table.

It was 8:29 in the morning. In the courtyard outside, birds chirped.

It must have been the “ Bone Hurting Juice .”  _That’s the last time I accept a drink from Undyne,_ he thought. The next time he attended any sort of party with her, house or otherwise, he’d bring his own flask.

Asriel tried to stand up, only to find something attached to his arm. No, some _one_ clinging to it. Chara had their arm wrapped around his arm and their head resting on his shoulder. A soft green blanket had been drawn up to their chin, and they snored softly, peacefully. They looked like a little angel, as Asriel was sure his mother would have said if she’d seen them like this.

He gave his sibling a gentle nudge.  _“Chara,”_ he whispered.  _“You awake?”_

“‘ _Is this a dagger which I see before me…’”_ they mumbled before cracking open their eyes. They let out a yawn, releasing them from the last vestiges of their dreams, and looked at their brother with innocent, ruby-red eyes. “Howdy, Asriel.” They blinked bemusedly. “How’d we get here?”

The two of them must have relocated here at some point in the night, but Asriel didn’t remember any of it. The coffee table was littered with a deck’s worth of playing cards and a cribbage board. “I think we did  _ Henry V.” _

Chara sniffed the air. “No breakfast today?”

“Mom has early meetings with the school board on Wednesdays. She helps grade exams.”

Chara rolled their eyes and made their way to the kitchen. “And you can’t make your own breakfast?”

“Only if I want eggs as black as my bacon.” Asriel laughed. “That’s what you get for letting Undyne teach you how to cook.”

As they pulled a jug of orange juice from the fridge, Chara perked up at the sound of the captain’s name. “Undyne!” They spoke her name wistfully, like that of a long-lost friend’s. “I’d love to see her again.”

“Sure! Right after breakfast. I’ve got to meet her later this morning at the airport.”

“You said you didn’t have work to do.”

“This isn’t _technically_ work,” Asriel wheedled. “Come on. Wash up, get dressed, and let’s go downtown.”

Chara ignored him, and cracked two large eggs into a skillet. “Asriel, come here.  _ This _ is how you  do eggs  sunny-side up .”

Asriel watched Chara prepare the eggs, not quite interested, and was easily distracted when his  phone began to buzz, rattling noisily on the table.  If he’d been paying attention, he might have noticed that the stovetop  and the skillet were both completely cool to the touch,  that Chara had not moved the dial one inch —and yet the eggs  began to sizzle and bubble anyway.

While Chara  kept working on their breakfast , he picked up the phone and held it under his ear. “His Royal Highness, Asriel Dreemurr, at your service.”

“ _This is Alucard. Have you seen any blackbirds recently?”_

Asriel went to the nearest window onto the courtyard and wedged his fingers between the blinds, peering through. There were a few hummingbirds buzzing at a feeder, but no blackbirds. “None that I can see. You?”

“ _The captain’s house is remarkably bird-free.”_ Alucard grumbled. _“_ _Strange._ _One would think observing us would be Black Emperor’s first priority.”_

Asriel nodded. “I agree. It’s suspicious. Listen, Alucard, is Undyne there right now? I’d like to talk to her.”

“ _Allow me to—”_

The line went dead, and the little beep that signified a dropped call went off in Asriel’s ear. Should he be concerned?

Seconds later, his phone buzzed again. “His Royal Highness, Asriel Dreemurr, at your service.”

“ _Asriel, it’s Undyne. Vampire guy’s phone just died. Anyway, you wanted to talk to me?”_

“Yeah, uh, about last night…”

“ _Hey, hey, I know how it is. You’ve got lots of responsibilities, it’s hard to pull yourself away from all that and be with friends. All the more reason to settle down and sire an heir, right?”_ Undyne giggled. _“But I’m sure you get enough of_ that _from your mom…”_

“Thanks for understanding.” It wasn’t quite true—technically, he was still neglecting his job, but for Chara. And Chara _needed_ him. That was his duty as king—to help those in need.  So in a roundabout way, he was still working, and all was like it was supposed to be. “Oh, by the way, I’ve got a family friend here who’d really like to meet you. Why don’t I bring them down to the airport with me?”

“ _Really? Who are they?”_

“Uh…” Asriel’s mouth went dry. Would Undyne jump to the same conclusion he had when he’d seen those red eyes? “Just an admirer. Your reputation precedes you, Captain.”

“ _Oh, don’t make me blush. Anyway, we’ve got to go to breakfast. Alphys and I forgot to go out and buy food again, and our guests are hungry.”_

Asriel chuckled. “Online grocery shopping, Undyne. I keep telling you, it’s a godsend.”

“ _I’m thinking about that Scottish place. You know the one?”_ Undyne’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. _“It—it’s not, y’know… Hey, if you serve a vampire blood sausage, he wouldn’t find it_ offensive, _would he?”_

Asriel snorted with laughter. “No, no, Undyne, I don’t think he’d be offended. I’ll see you at the airport.”

“ _Is that Undyne?”_ Chara hissed into his ear, having snuck up on him with the silence of a cat. Asriel nearly jumped out of his fur. He’d have to make them wear bells or something so they couldn’t do that. _“Can I say hi?”_

“Um, Undyne, the friend I told you about? They want to say hi.” He handed the phone to Chara, who took it with a trembling hand.

“U-Undyne? Captain Undyne?”

“ _Yeah?”_ Asriel could still hear her voice on the other end, now tinny and small. _“And you are…?”_

“Undyne, it’s so nice to see you again—to finally meet you, I mean—” They sucked air between their teeth and handed the phone back to Asriel, shaking their head. “Sorry. Can’t do it.”

“That’s okay.” He took the phone back. “Sorry, Undyne, they’re a little shy.”

“ _Aw, I don’t bite._ _Hard._ _Anyway, I gotta go. See ya!”_ She hung up, and the line once again went dead.

Chara pulled a denim jacket they’d picked out yesterday over their shoulders, still a little shaken, their face paler than usual. As if they’d seen a ghost. “So. Breakfast. Any ideas?”

“There’s a place with great crepes downtown.” Asriel spoke into his phone. “Wheatley. Bring the autocar around.”

“You’ve got a butler?”

“No, no. Just an app.”

The autocar pulled up in front of the palace just a moment later. It looked just like any other car, but with no steering wheel and only passenger seats. Chara whistled as they ran their finger across the sleek opalescent hood. “Self-driving cars?”

“You don’t have them?” Asriel slid into one of the seats and slotted his phone into the dashboard. “Wheatley. Take us to _Pâtisserie Magnifique.”_

The car started up silently, its electric engine making only the subtlest of humming noises. “I was so busy, I never had time to learn how to drive a car,” he told Chara. “Alphys helped invent these things. And not a moment too soon. Wheatley, news.”

“ _Morton Kaine, founder and CEO of Kaine Industrial Holdings and eighth richest man in the world, passed away last night in his suite in the MTT Grand Hotel. Doctors have determined he died due to natural causes. Kaine was ninety-six years old. With his death, the fate of Kaine Industrial Holdings, which owns child companies in dozens of industries, falls into question…_ ”

“Poor guy.” At least he went peacefully—which was probably more than he deserved.

“Good riddance,” Chara grumbled, crossing their arms.

“ _This morning, United States presidential hopeful Edison Enright, senator from New Jersey, announced shakeups to his campaign team following the sudden departure of campaign manager Dmitrii Blinov…”_

Chara hastily reached over and muted the speaker. “That’s quite enough of  _that.”_

“You have that clown in your universe, too?” Asriel asked.

“Oh, yes,” Chara said, glowering out the autocar’s tinted windshield at the scenery whizzing by. “I do.”

–

“ _Hello, passengers, this is your captain speaking. Flight 1408 to Ebott International Airport will begin making our final descent in just a few minutes here. The local time is 12:28 PM. We hope you’ve had a pleasant trip, and extend our warmest thanks for flying Daedalus Airlines.”_

A little over thirteen hours to cross an ocean and twelve time zones—not bad. And Soma had slept through most of it. Jet lag? What jet lag? He was full, well-rested, and ready to take on the world.

Oh, and he had a blood man’s soul inside his body and was probably going off to punch Nazis. Soma was sure that in his unique circumstances, anybody would be raring to go.

The plane tilted into a shallow, controlled dive, rocked gently by the winds as the ground slowly rose to meet it. Soma looked out the window. It wasn’t the best view of the ground—but he had a front-row seat to the plane’s left wing. As the ailerons flapped, a flock of black birds—unusual at this altitude—settled on the wing, clustered so tightly together it seemed almost like a single solid mass.

Despite his (mostly academic) interest in the occult, Soma was not a superstitious person. But this looked to him like an omen.

A pale human face poked out from the writhing mass of feathers, a bald head with a beaky nose, jutting chin, and leathery skin. It stared right through the window, and when its beady black eyes met Soma’s, its thin mouth curled up into a wicked grin. It held a long and crooked finger to its ashen lips.

Soma drew the shade down on the window as an unexpected jolt of turbulence rattled the cabin as the nose of the plane suddenly pitched downward.

And the trip had been going so well, too.

–

Undyne led her guests, the ancient vampire Alucard and his young witch accomplice Yoko Belnades, back to the captain’s seafoam-green van. “So, who’re we picking up? Vampire hunter? Super-spy? Frankenstein guy? The Invisible Man?”

“Not quite,” said Alucard. Somewhat loath to admit they were waiting for a kid fresh out of high school, he simply left it at that.

Doctor Alphys raised a trembling finger to the sky. “I-I really h-hope that isn’t their flight…”

Alucard followed the doctor’s gaze up, and saw a low-flying plane sail across the sky, its contrails black, smoke belching from all four of its engines. Black dots whirled around the wings, guiding the plane on a flight path to its doom. The plane was under attack, and Alucard had a good idea who was behind it.

Black Emperor.

Well, that explained why he hadn’t seen hide nor hair of his birds all morning.

“Yes,” said Alucard, “I am afraid that _is_ his flight.”

Undyne pulled out her phone. “Hey, Asriel? Looks like we’re not meeting at the airport. Uh, I dunno. Just follow my car, okay? What? The autocar? Yeah, I’ll put my coordinates on Wheatley. See ya later.”

–

On a plane, things can go tits up extremely quickly.

One might think that after thirteen hours of flight with no incident, the final stretch would be just as pleasant. One might also think that after thirteen hours of smooth operation, you were overdue to hit a few bumps in the road. In truth, one is never “due” for an accident. They happen when they like, albeit sometimes heralded by mechanical failure or even engineer or pilot negligence.

Like many other airplanes, this plane, which was currently operating _sans_ engines, had committed no sin to earn this hardship. Its pilots had made no mistakes. Its ground crew back in Japan had made no mistakes. Its flight attendants had made no mistakes.

This plane’s cardinal sin was that it was carrying a one Soma Cruz, a young man who several people, unfortunately, seemed to want very, very dead.

_It was the man made of birds,_ Soma thought, as his trembling fingers fumbled with the oxygen mask dangling from the ceiling. “Multiple engine failures,” the pilot had said over the intercom.  _His birds flew into the engines._

He pulled the window shade up. The man on the wing was still there, birds flying in and out of the amorphous mass that made his body. And he had a long, wicked sword, and to Soma’s shock, it bit right into the wing of the plane, raising sparks and black smoke. It looked like he planned to saw the wing right off the plane.

A good pilot could probably still land this plane with only a few bruises and mental trauma among the passengers, even with the engines kaput, as long as its wings were still attached. It was unthinkable—that this bird man could saw off a plane’s wing with just a sword. But, then again, he was a man made of birds. Nothing was unthinkable in this terrifying new world of blood people, bird men, possible Nazis, and soul-collectors.

The plane had pulled itself out of its dive, but was still at least 500 feet above the ground. There was no telling how quickly that could change, though, especially with a madman outside trying to saw off its left wing.

Soma covered the window again.  _Mina,_ he texted,  _the planes in trouble. Msg you later. If i dont thanks for being my firned_

_*Fridn_

_*Friend_

Soma took a deep breath from the oxygen mask, grabbed his coat, and stood up, clinging to the partition for stability.

If he could make the bird man fall off the wing, this plane could still have a shot of landing safely. The first thing that came to mind was shooting him with a signal flare—the kind any plane should have.

Soma pushed his way into the flight attendants’ quarters. They tried to push him back. “Sir, please, return to your seat—”

The emergency kit was right there, in full view. “Sir, what are you doing—”

He grabbed it, pulled it open. There, front and center, a single-use flare gun, its bright orange barrel making it look for all the world like a child’s toy. Jackpot. “I’m saving this plane!”

It was then that Soma realized how this must look to the flight attendants. They had every right to brand him a terrorist plane hijacker. No wonder they were dogpiling on him. But it was too late to turn back now—it was do or die.

There was a loud thud from overhead as a gaunt man in a red suit spilled out of one of the overhead storage compartments, along with the tattered remains of what looked like it had once been part of Soma’s backpack. He was only slightly less confused than everyone else on the plane, but it made for a good distraction.

Soma grabbed the gun, popped in a flare, and made a break for the door. Opening the door wouldn’t be  _fun,_ but at this height, the sudden loss of cabin pressure wouldn’t kill anyone from hypoxia.

Of course, he could be wrong, and everyone could die. With one more surge of bravado, he swung the door open.

–

Alucard grabbed Yoko by the wrist and pulled her into the van. “Everybody, inside. Captain, follow that plane.”

“Um—” Undyne cast a very confused backward glance at him. _“What?”_

“I have a plan,” Alucard assured her. “But I need you to bring me under the plane.”

“A-are you insane?” Alphys asked. “It’s still _five_ _hundred_ feet in the air!”

“It won’t be for long. Trust me. Just drive.”

The captain sighed, shrugged, threw up her hands, and pulled the car out of its parking space. “Okay. But only because if you’re going to do something batshit insane, I wanna see it.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STAND MASTER: BUCK LENNON  
> STAND NAME: [GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR]


	9. Godspeed You! Black Emperor

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, it's Soma versus the cunning Black Emperor.

While Alucard was preparing to do something insane, Soma Cruz was already completely off the deep end. The wind whipping at him through the plane’s open door was stronger and harsher than the embattled young man had ever anticipated, and as soon as he leaned out of the fuselage, one hand gripping the door handle so hard his knuckles turned as white as his hair, the other clutching the flare gun, he could feel the air blowing around him and buffeting his body threaten to throw him into the sky like a dead leaf caught in an updraft.

Papers and debris flew around, following Soma out the plane as the air pressure differential blew them out of the cabin. The red-suited man who’d popped into existence out of nowhere flew past Soma, evidently not expecting to show up on a crashing plane and ill-prepared to deal with the environment safely. He hit the wing of the plane and snapped in half, leaving a long smear of blood across the aluminum wing as the bisected halves of his body vanished into the wind.

The bird man kept sawing industriously at the wing. His black sword had moving teeth on it, like a chainsaw, chewing up the metal and spitting out sparks and twisted scraps of aluminum. He hadn’t noticed Soma yet.

Soma could shout at the man at the top of his voice and with the howling of the wind neither of them would be able to hear it.

It was so cold on the side of the plane that it hurt. Soma gritted his teeth, aimed at the bird man’s head, a pale oval sticking out from a mass of black feathers, and squeezed the trigger.

The gun went off with a bang and a puff of smoke. He’d never shot a real gun before—he hadn’t expected the recoil to be so strong. He had a split second as the flare cut through the air to hope his aim had still been true.

The flare hit the bird man’s torso and blossomed in a ball of eye-searing white-red light. He let out a shrill screech and tumbled off the wing, his sword sticking in place like a giant black thorn stuck into the plane. As he fell through the air, his body broke apart, and the flock scattered, disordered and confused, each bird equally feeling the pain of being shot in the stomach by a burning ball of potassium nitrate.

He’d done it—he’d saved the plane! But it was hardly time for celebration. His hand slipped, and by the time he could tighten his grip on the door handle, it was already too late. His feet had left the floor, and Soma found himself blown out into open air. He lashed out, grabbing at whatever he could as the ground and sky ran in circles around him. By happenstance, Soma’s fingers curled around the hilt of the bird man’s sword and he grasped it with a death-grip he hadn’t thought was possible.

The rest of his body fluttered in the wind like a flag on a pole, but at least he was still, technically, on the plane.

However, he was also still very much stuck up a foul-smelling creek with no paddle to speak of. And when Soma looked back, he could see the flock of birds regrouping. They were flying straight at him.

Below him, the roofs of the sprawling suburban houses were growing larger. Soon, he’d probably be able to make out the license plates on the cars below.

–

Daedalus Airlines Flight 1408 was gliding with no engine power; the pilot’s only choices were between trying to reach the plains or the lake surrounding the mountain and risk hitting the ground too soon, at which point it would bulldoze dozens of houses. It was going as a straight line, and relatively quickly at that. Undyne’s van, on the other hand, had fallen significantly behind as it crossed the morass of roads through the sprawling exurbs of the kingdom.

The air filled with honking horns from irate drivers as Undyne gratuitously violated every traffic law she came across in pursuit of the plane overhead.

Alphys tugged at her sleeve. “You don’t have your sirens on!”

“Huh. No wonder they’re mad at us.” The captain flipped a switch, unleashing a cacophony of noise and flashing lights. “There we go.”

Alucard poked his head out the window. The plane was getting closer—and lower to the ground. Five hundred feet had become one hundred feet and falling. And thanks to the captain’s manic driving, the horizontal distance between the car and the plane was closing as well.

–

The flock of birds converged on the wing yet again and morphed into the shape of a man—well, _almost_ a man. From the neck down the bird man was covered in a thick coat of feathers, with two great black wings for arms, capped with red feathers, and scaly, bony talons for feet digging into the aluminum wing. His monstrous claws left deep puncture marks on the battered metal surface.

The bird man grinned as he stomped toward Soma Cruz, fighting the wind every step of the way, but safely anchored in place—unlike Soma, who was acutely aware that he could tumble to his death at any moment.

There was no chance he’d land on something soft, but if he let go, maybe he could use his coat as a parachute and slow his descent long enough. It was a stupid idea, and almost sure to result in his death, but stupid ideas were all he’d had so far on this hemisphere of the globe.

_Here lies Soma Cruz, 2017-2035, died jumping out of a plane to fight a man made of birds._

He could think of worse ways to go.

To make matters worse, the sword he’d been clinging to for dear life started to wrench its way free of the plane’s wing.

The bird man was upon him, his pale and chapped lips pulling back to reveal a row of jagged, inhuman teeth. He reached out with a gray-black, scaly, spindly hand, long talon-fingers closing around Soma’s chest and pulling him away from the wing. Soma kept his death-grip on the sword, and it pulled a few more inches out of the wing, catching on the twisted gash in the wing for a few seconds before sliding out entirely.

Now the only thing keeping Soma from splattering on the ground was a man who, Soma was pretty sure now, wanted specifically to kill _him,_ and not just bring down the plane.

“ _What do you want with me?”_ he screamed at the man holding him above the wing of the plane. But the rushing air ripped the words from his mouth and scattered them to the four winds.

The man stomped forward, pinning Soma against the fuselage, sharp black talons sinking into the aluminum. Compared to the bitter cold wind screaming across his numbing face, the metal body of the plane pressing against his back was glacier-cold.

Soma glanced ahead. The plane was so low that the upper stories of some of the city’s taller condominiums were within spitting distance. In fact, one was coming up—a block of nine-story brownstone townhouses just a few seconds away as the crow flies—or, rather, as the blackbird flies. If he could make the bird man drop him at just the right time…

Soma curled his freezing fingers around the hilt of his pilfered sword and swung it at the bird man’s arm, severing it. There was no blood. Instead, black and red feathers fluttered from the severed edges. The bird man drew backward as his massive wing-arm molted, revealing a pale human arm underneath that looked almost pathetically tiny by comparison.

But the severed talon-hand remained, and still had Soma pinned down—ironically, saving him from falling to his doom.

That lasted about a second before the talon-hand exploded into a flurry of blackbirds, rending little tears in his jacket with their little claws before he slipped away.

Soma desperately hoped he’d gotten the timing right. He looked down as he flew through the air, quickly nauseated by the sight of the street rising up to meet him, the ground paradoxically growing faster and faster while also seeming to advance agonizingly slowly.

 _There were a million things I could’ve done besides this,_ Soma realized as he plummeted down to earth. Was this how rooftop jumpers felt in the seconds before they hit the sidewalk and their feet went through their brains?

Desperate, he flung out his arms—and his right hand caught the wrought-iron railing of one of the townhouse condominiums’ balconies. He swung into the balcony railing, the impact with the metal bars knocking out what little wind was left in him and leaving what would probably turn into nasty bruises around his ribs. His phone, which had admirably and miraculously stayed by his side through the whole ordeal so far, flew out of his pocket and shattered into thousands of pieces on the ground, dozens of feet below.

He looked around. This was the last townhouse on the block. If he’d fallen a second later, he’d have fallen right into the street, or splattered against the side of the building. A second sooner, and he could have missed the balconies entirely and plummeted to certain death. If the wind had blown him just a little off course, any balcony railing could have snapped his neck or even torn his head off. Amazing.

Soma pulled himself up and over the railing, wheezing as he gasped for air. He collapsed onto the balcony, his heart pounding, his chest heaving. He could feel his pulse in every part of his body. He was alive. He’d made it. _He’d made it!_

The flock of birds swarmed away from the plane’s wing, denied its target, but only took a few seconds to discover Soma’s new location. They congealed into a single body again, and the bird man swooped down at him.

–

Alucard noticed right away that Black Emperor had changed target, the flock of blackbirds pulling away from the crashing airplane and massing over a townhouse just a few blocks away. That meant Soma Cruz wasn’t on the plane anymore—he must have jumped and fallen onto one of these tall apartment complexes.

“Circle around this block,” he said, as he slid the passenger-side door open and leaned out. A passing car would have taken off his head, if not for his preternatural reflexes.

“ _Alucard, what are you doing?”_ Yoko shouted.

“Just watch.”

And then Alucard stood up, steeling himself and tensing the muscles in his legs. He waited for the building in question to come up on the van’s side, and leaped off the car and onto the building’s sandstone wall.

Vampires were most known for turning into bats, but in terms of physical abilities, one of the lesser-mentioned abilities they had involved scaling sheer vertical walls almost effortlessly. Yes, vampires were champion rock climbers, every last one of them, and half-breeds such as Alucard were just as adept as their full-blooded peers. Alucard stuck to the stone wall as if his hands and feet were coated with glue.

–

Soma peered into the apartment and politely rapped on the glass door. There was a man in his underwear inside, sitting alone at a table with a bowl of cereal, a spoon half-raised to his mouth. He put it down, walked to the door, and cracked it open.

“Excuse me, sir,” he asked with a thick New Orleans patois, “what are you doing on my balcony?”

Soma looked up and saw the distance between him and the bird man rapidly closing. “Uh, I just fell out of an airplane and there’s a man made of birds chasing me. Please let me in.”

The man opened the door a little wider and squinted at him through bleary, bloodshot eyes. “What?”

Soma pushed his way past the man. “Sorry about this,” he said as he forced his way into the apartment. “Sorry. I would never do this normally.”

He looked around the apartment. The first thing he spied was a tall pepper plant growing in a pot, long and thick yellow-green peppers hanging from it. It looked delicious. Just a few minutes ago he’d been full. Now he was famished. Funny what almost dying could do to your appetite.

He pointed at it. “Hey, I just fell out of a plane and I’m starving, can I have a pepper?”

“What?”

“ _May_ I have a pepper?”

“T-th-they’re hot peppers. Y-you can’t _eat_ them. And they’re _my_ peppers!”

“Sorry.” Soma plucked the biggest pepper, one with a touch of orange color on its tip. “I almost died, I’d eat dog food at this point.” He bit into it.

 _Oh, god, the man was right, I shouldn’t have done this._ His eyes watered. It had no taste, just heat, and it stung his sinuses like horseradish.

Outside, the bird man landed on the balcony, his wicked razor-toothed blade in hand.

“Hey! Who the hell are you?” the condo’s beleaguered tenant asked, as the bird man pushed him aside and stomped into the apartment.

Soma tapped the uneaten half of the pepper against his palm to loosen its seeds, all the while concentrating desperately on keeping his sinuses from voiding the contents of his nose while he held the other half in his mouth and ground it into a paste.

The bird man was upon him, yet again, raising his sword in the air. “I finally have you, Soma Cruz! Black Emperor always finds its prey!”

In his panic, Soma accidentally swallowed the pepper. It burned every part of his throat on the way down. “W-what? Soma Cruz? I’m, uh… Dwayne,” he choked out. “Dwayne Johnson.”

The bird man, or Black Emperor, as he called himself, blinked bemusedly. “Aw, _damnation_ , did I go after the wrong guy again?”

Black Emperor’s hesitation was all Soma needed. He took the opportunity to palm the man in the face, his hand sliding up the bird-man’s aptly beaky nose and smearing hot pepper seeds in his eyes.

Bird bodies couldn’t process capsaicin, the stuff that made chili peppers hot, (their loss) but humans could just fine. That’s why Soma had gone after the human part of this avian monstrosity. And it worked. Black Emperor screeched and reeled backward, tears streaming from his beady eyes, and Soma took the opportunity to run into the hallway.

Black Emperor followed.

–

Alucard reached the twelfth floor, swung over the wrought-iron balcony railing, and stepped through the open sliding-glass door, only to be met with a frazzled, rather angry-looking half-dressed man wielding a fireplace poker.

As the poker swung down, Alucard caught it, pulled it from the man’s hands, and bent it into a harmless pretzel knot. “Excuse me,” he said as the condo’s denizen slowly backed away. “Have you seen a young man with white hair come through here?”

The man pointed at the door with a shaking finger. “He—he ate my peppers.”

“That utter fiend.”

–

Soma stumbled down the staircase, his feet tripping over themselves as he descended flight after flight, story after story. Black Emperor came crashing down the stairs behind him, although the staircase was so tightly-wound that there was no way for either of them to see each other. He didn’t know how many floors ahead he was, and he was betting Black Emperor didn’t either.

His head still pounded, his heart still thudded against his ribs as if it were about to leap out of his chest, and tears still streamed down his face from the pepper he’d accidentally eaten.

He ducked into the fifth floor corridor, collapsed against the wall, and caught his breath, still pushing himself along. The pepper trick had bought him some time. But if he wanted to survive against this man, he’d need a real weapon.

Soma closed his eyes, pictured his mind library, the mental locus he’d created during the flight. He had a weapon there, and while he didn’t think it could bite through an airframe, it was better than nothing.

He opened his eyes as the blood sword sprang to life in his right hand. He was ready to defend himself if Black Emperor found him.

Soma reached the end of the hall. Sunlight streamed through the window set into the wall. One of the condo’s inhabitants had set up pots of succulent plants on the inner windowsill. On the outer windowsill, a red-wing blackbird sat, looked at him with beady eyes, and chirped.

The door at the other end of the hall burst open, and Black Emperor rushed through, tears still streaming down his red-rimmed, swollen eyes. His feathered coat had reshaped itself into a black cloak, and his crimson-tassled epaulettes flapped in the wind produced from his speedy approach. Had he made a lucky guess, or had he somehow known where Soma had been?

Black Emperor’s sword met Soma’s, and the black blade’s wicked teeth chewed at the spire of blood springing from Soma’s wrist. Long arcs of the hard, resin-like blood substance that curled around the central spike in helix patterns snapped off and flew across the hallway, loosing thin spurts of blood as they broke away, but the bloody sword held strong—for now. He was on the back foot, but alive.

His back to the wall, Soma lashed out and hit Black Emperor square in the groin with the sole of his boot. The bird man’s eyes bulged, a weak gasp escaping his chapped lips as he fell back. Soma’s next strike, his sword now freed, cut across Black Emperor’s chest and drew a thin line of blood across the air—blood from the sword, or blood from the man, Soma couldn’t tell.

His next strike went for the gut. Black Emperor tried to parry, but moved his blade to the left instead of the right, and the bloody blade cut even deeper this time.

He was disoriented—he could have turned into birds to avoid the bite of Soma’s blade, but hadn’t.

No—maybe he _couldn’t_. Because all the birds he could transform into were…

Soma quickly glanced backward. The blackbird outside watched him like a hawk.

Black Emperor must have had an upper limit of birds he could conjure out of his body. And right now, all of them were outside. And they were outside because…

 _The birds are his eyes!_ The pepper seeds must have temporarily blinded him—but he’d prepared for that by planting blackbirds all around the building. That was how he’d known which floor Soma had taken refuge on. He literally had a bird’s-eye view!

It would also explain why, still reeling from a hard kick to the crotch, Black Emperor had confused his left and right and allowed himself to be struck down. He was seeing himself from Soma’s perspective, where his left was Soma’s right and vise versa.

Either way, Soma had the bastard now. Should he run past Black Emperor and save himself, leaving the bird man to live and fight another day?

_No._

This freak had tried to crash a whole plane—filled with innocent passengers, pilots, and flight attendants—just to get at _him_.

_He doesn’t deserve to draw breath._

But could he just—so cavalierly snuff out a man’s life? He didn’t have any problems putting people in the hospital if they were real bastards—but the _morgue?_

Soma retracted his blood-blade and picked up the sawtooth blade Black Emperor had dropped on the floor, and brought the blade up as the bird man writhed on the carpeted floor—and Black Emperor began to laugh, droplets of blood squeezing out of his cracked, chapped lips. _“Nice going, kid…”_ he rasped, shaking his bald head. _“My stars and garters, you’re a tough one. No wonder the Boss wants you dead.”_

“Who wants me dead?” Soma’s pulse raced. “What the hell are you? What the hell am _I?”_

“ _Oh, wouldn’t_ you _like to know.”_

“Yes. Yes I would. What’s so goddamn important about me to weirdos like you?”

Black Emperor sat up, still wincing in pain. “Oh, boy. Weirdo. You’re the soul collector, but _I’m_ the weirdo. Why? Because I can turn into birds?”

“No, because you tried to crash a plane to kill one person on it. Also, yeah, the bird thing.”

“Look, kid, do you think I woke up this morning and said, ‘Golly, I sure can’t wait to crash a plane today?’ You were supposed to die on the plane, and I was supposed to make sure you were dead. You weren’t, so now I have to clean up King Crimson’s mess.”

Soma laughed, despite how it hurt his bruised and aching chest, and lowered the sword. “Can’t say you’ve done a good job so far.”

“Oh, bless your beating heart, Soma.” Black Emperor grinned wickedly. “I’ve told you before. Black Emperor _always_ gets his prey.”

Soma hesitated as the man raised a spindly finger and pointed at something behind his back, and when he turned his head, he saw why Black Emperor had been laughing at him.

The window was covered in birds. There were so many that the glass was a mass of writhing black. The glass cracked and shattered, and a solid column of birds poured out. Soma threw up his hands, tried to swat the birds out of the air, but it was like trying to cut through smoke. They pecked at him. Scratched at him. The birds were everywhere—a Hitchcock movie brought to life. Soma held his forearm against his eyes—anything to keep the birds from pecking them out.

So this was it. This was how he would die. Not the plane crash. Pecked to death by blackbirds.

Soma ran for his life, blind as a bat, hounded by a flock of birds who all acted with a singular, fiercely intelligent consciousness. He blundered back into the staircase and slammed the door shut behind him, feeling a dozen tiny bodies thump against the other side of the door.

There were still a few birds forming a black cloud around him, tugging at his hair with sharp beaks—

And suddenly, the birds fell out of the air, all neatly bisected, their insides blackened and smoking.

The blade of Soma’s pilfered sword fell to the floor as well, sliced perfectly cleanly off the hilt. Soma discarded the ruined blade.

A tall, lithe, pale man wearing all black, with intense eyes the color of red wine, descended the staircase, a long black sword in hand. The sword’s curved blade twinkled as though a hundred stars had been trapped within it.

The tall man held out his free hand. “Ah,” he said, “you must be Soma Cruz. I suppose you’d like to go someplace safer?”

 _Arikado!_ “More than anything,” Soma gasped, taking his savior’s hand.

They ran down the stairs, Soma trailing behind, struggling to keep up with Arikado’s pace, each breath he took like a knife in his side. The stairwell was filled with the sound of dozens, hundreds of birds, all flapping their wings in unison. At the second floor landing, Arikado cut through the door and kicked what remained off of its hinges, then ran down the hall, dragging Soma by the arm.

“I knew it!” Soma gasped, in awe of Arikado’s incredible speed and strength. “I _knew_ you weren’t human! So what are you? A Terminator? A Time Lord? Alien-hybrid supersoldier?”

“Vampire,” he grunted.

“Oh, god.”

“Half.”

At the end of the hall was another window, about large enough for a person to go through. Arikado broke the glass with his fist, knocking aside the remaining shards of glass. _Oh, god,_ Soma thought, _not again,_ as Arikado pulled Soma close, holding his arm tightly across the beleaguered young man’s chest, and, turning around to face the solid mass of birds following the two of them down the hallway, did a back dive out the window like a scuba diver going over the railing of a boat.

For Soma, this was the second time in about fifteen minutes he’d fallen from a perilous height, and he barely had the energy left to scream.

After about two seconds that stretched into an interminable eternity, Arikado landed on the hood of an iridescent silvery autocar, the impact crushing the hood and bringing the car to a screeching halt with one of its tires stuck on the sidewalk. Soma barely felt the force of the impact—his black-suited guardian angel had absorbed the lion’s share of it.

Arikado pushed Soma off of him and rolled off the car, brushing a few tiny glass shards off of his once-impeccable black suit. Soma’s knees buckled as he tried to stand up, the feeling vanishing from his legs. The blood sword still tied to his wrist came undone and splattered on the sidewalk as he fell to his knees. It was like a switch had been flipped in his brain. From combat mode to jelly mode.

“Fortune, it seems,” said Arikado, “favors the bold.”

A tall, imposing figure stepped out of the car. It looked like a giant, anthropomorphic white goat with an eyepatch. _The people sure are strange-looking here,_ Soma thought, before he realized that he recognized this creature. It was the king. King Asriel Dreemurr.

Asriel inspected the damage to the hood, and with a slight, amused smile, turned to Arikado. “Alucard—er, I mean, Arikado—how did you know I’d be here to catch your fall?”

Cracking his back, Arikado replied, completely deadpan, “I didn’t.” It was then that Soma truly realized just how close he’d come to dying for the third—or was it fourth?—time today. Also, _holy shit,_ he’d just totaled the car of a head of state. This was not a good day for him.

–

It wasn’t a good day for Soma Cruz, but it was hardly a good day for Black Emperor as well. His eyes—his human eyes, at least—still burned, and relying too much on the combined eyesight of over a hundred birds for more than a few seconds at a time gave him a migraine. And now Alucard was there, and the half-breed’s new allies were likely close behind.

This was bullshit. He was supposed to observe and report, and rough up Alucard and company (but just a little) with the help of King Crimson’s army-in-a-bottle, but that was all. No one was supposed to be dumb enough to send the one kid who could ruin all of their plans _here_ , and one kid fresh out of high school should have been an _easy_ mark.

 _I was wrong—_ _King Crimson should have just slit his throat right then and there. None of this nonsense with the plane._ But now what? The kid was alive, and tenacious beyond Black Emperor’s imagination, and now he had friends in high places. King Solomon’s court had been outfoxed.

The time to fight was over. He’d failed the mission. All he cared about now was getting to safety, washing his goddamn eyes out, and letting his master know that the reincarnation of Dracula was still in play.

Then something caught him by the leg, and before he could disperse himself, a lance of electricity shot through his chest.

–

The bird-man off in the distance dropped like a stone, and Captain Undyne flexed her muscular left bicep with pride, her scales rippling over toned and well-defined muscles. Her lightning javelin had thrown straight and true, even when thrown from her non-dominant arm. Unfortunately, there probably wasn’t much chance there would be anything left of Black Emperor to drag into the police station and interrogate.

Undyne retracted her prosthetic hand back into her wrist, crossed her arms, and nodded in satisfaction at her own prowess.

And suddenly, a strange person with familiar eyes was standing in front of her, an ear-to-ear grin splitting their face. “Hell of a shot, Undyne!”

Those were Chara’s eyes, and the last person (though “person” was being generous) she’d met who’d had Chara’s eyes had maimed her current boss, kidnapped her girlfriend, cut off her arm and leg, and murdered her former boss.

Chara stuck out their hand and smiled like someone who’d never done it before. “It’s so great to see you again, old friend.”

Her first instinct was to punch them in the face, which she thankfully avoided acting upon as a result of her boss’s immediate intervention. “Captain, I’d like to introduce you to my older sibling, Chara. They’ve come all this way from a parallel universe to see us!” said Asriel, desperately prodding Undyne into shaking hands with the red-eyed doppelganger. “Don’t you worry. They’re quite tame.”

“Uh-huh.” Undyne shook Chara’s hand with a vice grip, their pale skin turning even whiter from the pressure exerted by her metal right hand. “Pleasure’s mutual.”

Chara relented, breaking off the handshake, and rubbed at their eye. “Sorry. Sorry, just a bit of dust in there…” The side of their hand came away smeared black with mascara. “Ugh. Not again.”

Asriel clapped Undyne on the back. “Well, I think we’ve all earned some brunch. Any suggestions? There’s a great deli down here that—” His right eye roved, his head turning with it, until he caught sight once again of Alucard and Yoko.

“Alucard, I’m so sorry,” Asriel said, approaching the black-clad man as he and his comrade tended to the kid currently shivering on the ground. He unfastened the brooch holding onto his cape and hung it over the boy’s shoulders. “Your special guest must not have made it off the plane. Kudos to you for rescuing this one, though. You’ve got a good heart—”

Yoko looked a bit uncomfortable. Alucard looked significantly less comfortable, his eyes darting back and forth in an agitated way.

Undyne saw Asriel’s face fall as he realized the truth. She knew how he felt about kids getting drawn into situations like this.

“Um, yeah,” Yoko said, cringing. “About that…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If Soma can do this much with a single pepper, just think of all he'll be able to accomplish later on when he gets that soul that lets him conjure bowls of curry on demand.


	10. The Night of the Eclipse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, the eclipse draws nearer and battle lines are drawn.

The rest of the day was a blur for Soma. The world felt like it was out-of-focus and hazy. It maybe it was _him_ that was out-of-focus. Like a phantom. Like he’d stepped out of phase with the rest of time and space.

He’d met the King, shook his hand, met with the Captain of the Royal Guard, who was some sort of air-breathing fish monster, and her wife, who was some sort of tiny lizard. Miss Belnades was there too, at Arikado’s side, and the King had a friend with him who claimed to be his sibling (although, of course, that was impossible, since Mount Ebott mythology was one of the _many_ Soma and Mina had studied together, and they both knew very well the legend of Asriel and Chara). He’d vomited a few times, they’d gotten him some very easy-on-the-stomach soup, a bunch of guys with cameras had taken photos of him…

It took a few hours for his head to clear. When the world snapped back into focus around him, Soma was sitting, with a thick blanket draped over his shoulders and a steaming hot mug of tea in his hands, in the office of the monster whose car he and Arikado had totaled. He saw a desk almost buried in papers, a shelf full of books, and a glittering model of the solar system hanging from the ceiling in the corner of the office.

This was the office of King Asriel Dreemurr. It looked much busier than he’d expected. He didn’t think kings _did_ anything in modern times, especially not enough to warrant _that_ much paperwork.

Soma tapped his hands nervously on the edge of the desk as the king’s voice rose from the next room over, where he was currently “discussing” something with Arikado, or “Alucard,” as the king occasionally called him. It was a very one-sided conversation. Or, at least, Arikado’s voice was too quiet to bleed through the wall. Soma assumed the king was chewing Arikado out over his car until he listened more closely.

“ _You never told me you were bringing along a_ child! _What is_ wrong _with you?”_

Arikado muttered a retort.

“ _No, I won’t allow it… Don’t you bring_ that _up! That was thirteen years ago; it has_ nothing _to do with this!”_

There was a soft murmur in response from the government spook.

“ _No, Alucard, he’s_ seventeen, _he doesn’t belong on your mission—”_

Arikado must have said something very profound, because the king suddenly fell silent. Asriel’s next words were at a much lower volume, and as a result, Soma could no longer hear the conversation.

After a few minutes with nothing but some muffled babbling on the other side of the wall, the door to the king’s office burst open, startling Soma nearly enough to make him drop his tea. Some of it splashed on the floor.

Asriel strode through the door, violet cloak swirling around him. “If so much as a hair on his head is out of place by the end of the day tomorrow, Alucard,” he called back, “I promise I’ll—” He looked straight at Soma with his single golden eye and instantly changed his demeanor, smiling as he let the door swing shut behind him. “Hello there. How’s the tea, Soma?”

“Uh…” Soma looked down at the dregs in his mug. “Okay?”

“Let me be the first to say how sorry I am about all this,” Asriel continued, pulling up a chair from his desk and sitting in front of Soma. “Alucard never informed me that someone as young as you had gotten caught up in all this nonsense.”

“I-I’m seventeen.”

“I know! You can’t even join the army yet!” Asriel rubbed his horns. “Let alone vote…”

“What’s going on?” Soma asked, for what felt like the eightieth time that day.

“I’ll explain later. Now,” The king said, “I’m sure you must feel very frightened and very alone, Soma. Never fear, I’ll have you know that you are now under the King’s protection. My Captain and I will guard you with our lives…”

Soma didn’t feel “frightened and alone” so much as he felt like not only had he studied for the wrong exam, he’d shown up to it in his underwear. If anyone felt “frightened and alone” right now, it would be _Mina_ _._ Soma’s last text to her had been to tell her his plane was crashing!

He reached into his pocket and felt for his phone. Nothing but his wallet. He reached into his other pocket. No phone there either. “Mr. Your Highness, sir—can I borrow your phone? I lost mine.”

“You’ve nothing to worry about. I’ve made a call to your parents and told them you came here at my urgent request, on the basis of your fantastic grade point average. Snatched you up for a summer internship.”

“No, no, I have a friend back in Japan.” Soma’s fingers gripped the arms of his chair. “Mina Hakuba. She needs to know I’m alright. I need to know—”

“You do know it’s past midnight there.”

Soma nodded. “I can just leave a message.”

“Say no more.” The king produced his phone from somewhere within his violet cloak. “Do you know her number?”

Soma blanked out. Who memorized phone numbers in this day and age? “She’s on Social+, I can look up her number there—”

The king played with his phone. “Social+. Ah, I see.” He smiled. “There she is! She’s got you in her profile picture! That’s adorable.”

There was no mockery behind those words, but Soma still felt himself blush. The king made the call, then held the phone under his ear and waited.

“Can’t _I_ make the call?” Soma asked.

Asriel began introducing himself in halting, tortured Japanese, then paused for a moment. “Oh. Oh, yes, thank you.” He laughed. “I’m a bit out of practice, as you can probably tell. Hello, Ms. Hakuba. It’s nice to meet you. This is Asriel Dreemurr, King of Mount Ebott. I have a Mr. Soma Cruz here who insisted he speak to you at once.”

Soma gritted his teeth. _Just hand it over…_

“Yes, yes, he’s all in one piece. But you don’t have to hear it from me.” He handed the phone to Soma, who greedily grabbed it and thrust it at his ear.

“Hello?”

Mina’s voice was music to his ears, although she sounded wearier even than he was. _[_ _Soma! Soma, is that you? Are you all right?_ _]_

“Yeah. Yeah, I’m fine,” Soma replied. [Have you been awake all night?]

She suppressed a yawn. _[_ _I was too worried to sleep. Soma, they said you jumped out of the plane!_ _]_

“Yeah. Yeah, I did. But it wasn’t that far of a drop. I’m fine. In fact, I’ve never felt better. Come on, Mina. If you don’t get some rest, you’ll sleep through the eclipse.”

Mina sniffed. _[_ _I’m so happy you’re okay, Soma._ _]_

[So am I.]

She laughed. _“And it looks like you’re already making new friends.”_

“Yeah, well, I’ve got you to thank for that.” He’d also made at least one new enemy, but he figured he should keep that to himself for now. [Do not spend the rest of the morning worrying about me. I can take care of myself from here on.] He paused, then added, “Talk to you soon.”

_[Talk to you soon too, Soma. I can’t wait!]_

“Give me a call before the eclipse, okay?”

_[Okay! Goodbye!]_

“See ya.” Soma hung up and gave Asriel back his phone. “Thanks, Your Highness.”

“Don’t mention it.” Asriel slipped the phone back into the folds of his voluminous cloak. “And you can dispense with the royal titles in private conversation.” The king stood up and turned to face the window, hands folded behind his back. “Now, Alucard and his friend have made it abundantly clear they want to recruit you for their mission. Personally, I’m against it.”

“It’s kind of personal,” Soma replied.

“I wasn’t much younger than you when I went through these sorts of trials. They _hurt_ you, Soma, in more ways than you can imagine, and you shouldn’t choose to put yourself through them.”

“Uh… huh.” Soma wasn’t used to adults, let alone heads of state, pouring their hearts out to him.

“I’d advise you to stay out of this. But I feel like you at least deserve to know why you’ve ended up here.”

“Yeah, I’d really appreciate knowing why people are trying to kill me.”

Asriel strode to his office door and knocked three times. “Okay, he’s ready. You can come in now.”

–

The growing coalition now consisting of Undyne herself (captain of the Royal Guard), her wife Alphys (engineer, former Royal Scientist, and nominal CEO of Alphadyne ArmorWare), Asriel (King of Mount Ebott, Son of Asgore, Inheritor of the Delta Rune, _et cetera, ad nauseum_ ), Alucard/Genya Arikado (half-vampire secret agent), his assistant Yoko Belnades (spy and witch in-training), and their special guest Soma Cruz (high school graduate), stood in Asriel’s now very-crowded office to discuss their further plans.

All things considered, Soma took the news about Dracula’s castle pretty well. But when you’d already gotten a taste of the supernatural, everything was believable.

Alucard hypothesized the next day would go as follows: The rogue agency members would enter Castlevania through the eclipse at the shrine at around midnight Mount Ebott time. The exact way time flowed within the castle was unknown, but according to the theories of Agency scientists, time only crawled by while the moon’s shadow passed through special intersections of ley lines.

When the eclipse passed over Asriel’s own Royal Observatory and the way to Dracula’s castle opened, twelve hours would have passed in the outside world, but only a few hours would have passed inside the castle. This put the rogue agency at a major advantage, giving them hours to explore the castle and set up a beachhead and bringing them closer to the throne room. Alucard and friends would have to strike hard and fast to prevent the rogue agency from taking full control of the castle.

Undyne had just been about to point something she’d noticed out when her phone went off in her pocket. She sighed and pulled it out. Royal Coroner—It was police business.

She stood up. “Sorry, guys, I’ve got to take this.” She left the office, walked a ways down the corridor, and took the call outside of the empty office of a praetor who’d recently retired.

“Hello? Captain Undyne here. What’s new?”

“ _Undyne, we’ve just finished the autopsy on Morton Kaine.”_ She knew that name— _everybody_ did. The wealthy (and widely-despised) twenty-first-century robber baron who’d been found dead in his hotel suite this morning.

“Yeah? Natural causes, right?” _Oh, please be natural causes._ There were way too many people, humans and monsters alike, who would have liked to hurt Mr. Kaine, and that would be trouble.

The next words from the coroner’s office were not pleasant. _“We turned him over to a human specialist. She said she’d never seen anything like it.”_

Well that was a bad sign.

The Royal Guard and the police force under its command still only had a token minority of human members, despite recent pushes toward diversity, and as a result, the coroner’s office was not always well-equipped to handle human deaths. When monsters died, the magical morphogenetic fields defining the shape of their bodies broke down, reducing their bodies to dust. Monsters who died of sickness or old age left corpses behind, but only for a scant few days, weeks at most, before the field broke down. Victims of violent deaths went to dust instantly. Unlike humans, such a death lent little for an autopsy.

Undyne’s stomach sank. “S… so, give it to me straight. What’d he die of?”

“ _The outside of the body looked completely normal. But on the inside… he was completely cooked.”_

“Burned?” But she’d seen the scene of his death this morning. “There weren’t any scorch marks, no smoke residue, no—”

“ _It’s the strangest thing. An invisible fire that produces no smoke and no ash, but still burns. We checked the records and can’t find a single monster with powers like that.”_ The royal census, completed every two years, kept a record of what magical powers, if any, every monster in the kingdom and abroad had. Most monsters had completely benign abilities afforded to them by their magic, but some powers had their inherent dangers.

“Maybe it wasn’t one of us. Maybe there’s a human out there who can do magic. They wouldn’t have had to fill that out on the census.” _Or maybe it was someone who wasn’t from around here… perhaps someone from another dimension…_

Undyne hung up, hurried inside the office, and grabbed Asriel by the arm. “Asriel. We need to talk. In private.”

Asriel gestured around the room. “We _are_ in private.”

“ _Extra_ private.”

The king relented and followed Undyne to the empty office, next to an empty bookshelf. “Okay.” Asriel warily side-eyed the pale spots on the wall where paintings had once hung. “What’s this about, Captain?”

“It’s about Morton Kaine.”

“Oh. Natural causes, was it?”

“I just got off the phone with the coroner. Human specialist. He was burned from the inside out. No one on record has magic that can do that.”

Asriel’s mouth gaped in shock. “Oh… Good heavens. Do you have any leads?”

“Do you know,” Undyne asked, “where this… new Chara was, last night, while you were with us?”

Asriel shook his head. “Undyne, no. No, you can’t be serious—”

“ _Do you know?”_ She grabbed him by the shoulders and looked at him, eye to eye, eyepatch to eyepatch. That golden eye of his was still, after everything he’d done and everything he’d suffered, still soft and innocent.

“They—they went for a—” Asriel gulped. “A walk. A long walk.” He seemed to know exactly how bad it sounded. “But they couldn’t have—They’re just a human, they can’t do magic like we can!”

“Is Ms. Belnades a human?”

Asriel opened his mouth, stammered something, but had no counterargument.

“How can you _trust_ them, Asriel? An invader from another universe, one who looks just like Zero, and you welcome them into your _house_ with open arms? The one time you decide _not_ to spend day and night working yourself to death and pretending we don’t exist and you spend it with _them_ and not your _real_ friends?”

Asriel batted Undyne’s hands away, his expression hardening. “I see,” he said coldly. “So _that’s_ what this is about.”

“What have they done to earn your trust?”

Asriel tightened his grip on Undyne’s wrist—not her prosthetic one, the other one. She could feel the strength behind his hand as he cut off her pulse—he hadn’t lost a bit of it, despite long ago trading barbells for books.

“You weren’t _there,_ Undyne. Mom and I—Chara saved our lives.” Asriel gestured back toward the door to his office. “They’re a good person. I know it. All I ask is for you to give them a chance.”

Undyne relented, despite her deeply-held reservations. She crossed her arms. “One chance.”

–

It was nearly midnight in Mount Ebott, and the eclipse was twelve hours away. Of course, half an Earth away, though, at the Hakuba Shrine, the eclipse was only about half an hour away.

In the now-cramped apartment down in the foothills of the mountain, Soma had Yoko Belnades’ computer on his lap and had a little videoconference going. Mina’s face showed up on the screen, bright and cheerful, her auburn hair tied back by two thin red ribbons, a pair of paper sunglasses propped up against her forehead. _“Soma! Hi!”_

Soma waved in front of the camera. “Hi, Mina.” _God_ it was good to see her smiling face again. Turned out all you needed to really appreciate the face of a friend was a close brush with death.

Yoko leaned over Soma’s shoulder. “Hello, Mina. It’s nice to see you again!” She nudged Alucard, who leaned over Soma’s other shoulder and offered a greeting of his own. “We’ve got some other friends here, too…” Alphys and Undyne crowded into the frame as well from behind the living room couch.

“ _Hello, Miss Yoko! Hello, Mr. Arikado! Soma, this is great! We can all watch the eclipse together! J’s here, too, let me call him over!”_

Mina pointed her laptop’s webcam toward the sky, and the video lurched and focused on the sun in the sky. The camera automatically adjusted to the intense light and revealed the sun in all its glory. At this point, it looked as though someone had squished one of its sides, but that deformity would soon turn into a growing bite mark as the eclipse drew closer to totality.

“Yeah, uh, that’s great, but…” Soma took a deep breath and tried not to let the worry show on his face. “Mina, uh, I don’t think you two should look at the eclipse here.”

“ _What do you mean? The weather’s fine!”_

“No, I mean—” Soma sighed, knowing he was going to sound crazy. He looked to Yoko, then to Alucard. “Can I tell her?”

Alucard nodded.

“See, Mina, if you look at the eclipse while you’re at the shrine, Dracula’s castle is going to eat you.”

Mina blinked, bemused. _“Um… what?”_

“Your friend speaks the truth,” said Alucard. “Were I you, I would head indoors immediately.”

“Look, just take a bus and go see it in town,” Soma pleaded. “But you have to leave the shrine, Mina. It’s not safe.”

An unfamiliar voice cut into the video. _“You should listen to your friend, miss.”_

Mina looked away from the screen and gasped as a hand shot out and grabbed her by the wrist.

It was _him_ _._ Soma nearly stood up and let the laptop fall to the floor, but Arikado and Yoko held him down. _“Mina!”_ he cried out.

The laptop on the other side of the world fell and hit the grassy ground, showing a skewed view of the ground and a flurry of boots. Soma could hear the sound of struggle but was powerless to do anything but listen and watch in horror. Somebody—probably J—shouted out.

A man in a red coat, with red-tinted glasses and long brown hair picked up the laptop and faced its webcam, grinning. Gavin Fripp.

“Let her go, you piece of shit!” Soma’s pulse raced. He was seconds away from putting a boot through the laptop’s screen, in the vain, primal hope that perhaps the foot would connect with the face of his tormentor and nemesis.

Fripp wagged a finger. _“_ _Simmer down_ _, Soma. I’ll admit, I didn’t expect to hear from you again. You’ve been a real pain, you know that?”_

“I’ll show you pain,” Soma growled.

“ _Oh, no, no, no you won’t, honor student. You see, we’re going to take your dear, sweet friend Mina with us on our little excursion to Castlevania. We’ll take very good care of her, don’t worry, and we’ll bring her back completely unharmed… but only under one condition.”_

In the background, an unknown man—the man who’d grabbed Mina, probably—cried out: _“Ow! She bit me!”_

Fripp turned his head. _“Settle down, princess,”_ he called out lazily, _“your knight won’t be coming.”_

“Like _hell_ I won’t!”

“ _Oh, but if_ you _accompany Mr. Arikado and Ms. Belnades on their sojourn tomorrow…”_ Fripp drew a finger across his throat, agonizingly slowly, grinning a macabre death-rictus the whole time. _“Have I made myself clear?”_

This couldn’t be happening. Mina had nothing to do with this. She was kind. She was innocent. Nobody had any right to draw her into this situation. Soma’s fingers clenched the edges of the laptop with such force that he felt the pressure might crack its casing. “How dare you!” he screamed, his voice hoarse. “I’m going to come for you and I’m going to _rip your entrails out and hang you with them!”_

Alucard’s pale hand shot out, grasping the top of the laptop’s screen. “It is best if we stop watching,” he said. But before he could pull the screen down, Fripp addressed him.

“ _Genya Arikado. I believe our boss would like a word with you.”_ He handed the laptop over to another man, a man with crew-cut red hair and a sleek pair of sunglasses with lenses like oil slicks. Gray seeped into his hair near the edges of his hairline.

Yoko held a finger to her lower lip. “Isn’t that…”

“ _Solomon Graves,”_ the man said, _“Head of Operations here at the shrine site. But you already suspected as much, didn’t you?”_

“Why are you betraying the Agency?” Yoko lashed out, her tongue sharp.

Solomon laughed. _“Why_ indeed. _Alucard_ _, I suspected you’d find another way to Dracula’s castle no matter where you were. Go ahead. Meet me at the castle—_ _but come alone_ _. I’ve long had a score to settle with you.”_

“Is that so? I don’t recall having much an opportunity to start a rivalry with the likes of you.”

“ _Perhaps we can discuss it over tea.”_ Solomon closed the lid of Mina’s laptop and the screen went black.

Yoko gave Soma a hesitant pat on the shoulder.

Alucard stood up and tapped his chin. “Our mutual enemies seem to care less about Ms. Belnades and myself entering Dracula’s castle than keeping you out by any means necessary, Soma. Do they think _you_ would prove a greater threat to their plans than _I_ would?” He seemed almost offended.

“Shut up.” Soma quivered with fury, a roiling fire building up inside himself. Those people—those creatures—he would make them regret _everything._ “That’s it. I’m coming with you,” he spat through gritted teeth. “I don’t care what he says, or what the King says.” He slammed the laptop shut. “I’m going to Dracula’s castle.”

Undyne clapped a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “I like your initiative, kid. Come on, you need a crash course on sword-swinging.”

–

Asriel was working late into the night, as he often did. His productivity had suffered considerably with Chara’s sudden and inexplicable arrival, not to mention Alucard and this whole business with Dracula’s “Castlemania,” or whatever it was called.

Not that he didn’t _enjoy_ having Chara around, and Asriel had to admit he’d been working himself far too much, but he had an important job. Perhaps the _most_ important job. And a lot of people—very good friends and dear family members alike—had sacrificed a lot so Asriel could grow up to take up his father’s crown. There were no duties he could afford to shirk.

At least tonight he was compromising by working from home. He may have been hunched over his laptop trying to keep his eye from glazing over while reading the latest bill on subsidies for higher education, but at least he was sitting in a comfy recliner in the living room while doing it. He even had a fire crackling in the hearth.

Asriel considered putting his feet up, but knew that the moment he did it he’d fall asleep. He redoubled his efforts to parse the document, stifling a yawn as he wrestled with the obtuse legislative language. He rubbed his eye.

The distant creak of the front door as it swung open provided a welcome distraction from the worst drudgeries of kingship. Chara sauntered through the foyer, back from another long nighttime walk. The crisp night air had left their cheeks rosy. “Still up?” they noted, surprised.

“I had work to do. How was your walk?”

Chara took a second to respond. “Refreshing,” they concluded, brushing stray windswept hairs out of their face.

Asriel couldn’t help but recall Undyne’s theory. Had Chara gone out to take lives like a twenty-first-century Jack the Ripper? He pushed the thought away and jammed it, none too gently, into a deep corner of his mind. _You’re being paranoid again, Asriel,_ he told himself.

“How are you feeling?” Asriel asked. Chara had been so excited to see Undyne—they must have been great friends in the other timeline—but she’d brushed him aside like a stray piece of seaweed. Asriel couldn’t blame her for her suspicions, but… it must have hurt Chara.

“Oh, I’m fine,” Chara said, wearing what Asriel could swear was the “I’m lying to you for no good reason” expression he very distinctly remembered seeing often in his childhood. “Nothing to clear your head like a nice, brisk walk.”

“You sure you’re okay out there alone? You don’t know the area—”

“Oh, don’t you go doubting my innate sense of geography like that. Don’t you remember how I always knew the way back home when we’d go out to play?” Chara leaned over the top of Asriel’s chair, peering between his horns at his laptop’s screen. “You know,” they added, “back in my world, I had a cabinet to handle all those nitty-gritty details _for_ me.”

“I-I’d rather draw my own conclusions,” Asriel replied, snapping the laptop shut. It would be rude of him to keep working while entertaining a guest. “You can’t always trust someone else’s judgment.”

“Too true.” Chara yawned and scratched absentmindedly behind Asriel’s ear.

“You know,” said Asriel, “I don’t recall you being so…”

“So what?”

“Nice, I guess.”

Chara laughed. “I was—well, you know, I—” Chara sighed. “You’ve got a point there. I had a lot of growing up to do.” They ran their fingers through the fur on Asriel’s neck. “Quite a mess you’ve invited onto your doorstep, isn’t it?”

“I don’t recall inviting you onto my doorstep,” Asriel retorted.

“Hah!” Chara reeled back. “What ferocious wit! I suppose time makes strangers of us all.”

“Having to fight your phantom doppelganger to survive will do that to you.”

Chara patted Asriel on the shoulder. “There, there. Wish I could’ve met them. I’d like nothing more than to give them a piece of my mind.”

“I appreciate the gesture, but it’s all right now.” It had been a long time ago. Asriel was better now. Mostly.

“And no, the ‘mess’ I was referring to was—”

“Your new friends.” Chara nodded, stroking their chin in a very Holmesian way.

The whole situation stank, especially the way that boy Soma had been drawn into it. Asriel hoped the kid would listen to his advice.

“There’s something about that Alucard person.” A faraway tone crept into their voice. “I think I know the look in his eyes. The way he carries himself. Poor guy.” Chara ruffled Asriel’s fur and began to trudge toward the guest bedroom. “Well, good night, Azzy. Do try to get some sleep—it’s your big day tomorrow.”

Asriel pulled himself out of his chair. “Will you be all right tonight?”

“Sure,” Chara lied.

Asriel thought he knew what was troubling his sibling. “I’m sorry, Chara. Just—just be yourself, and I’m sure you and Undyne will be besties before you know it!”

Chara muttered something in response.

“And,” Asriel added as Chara began to slink behind the door, “whenever you’d like to talk about what happened in your world, I’m sure you’ll feel a lot better—”

“Maybe tomorrow.” The door silently swung shut.

Asriel once again found himself the last one awake in the house. With a snap of his fingers, he extinguished the amber-gold flames fluttering in the fireplace and retreated to his own bed.

–

Nobody slept easily that night, try as they might.

The distant sound of steel on steel echoed through the air as, outside, Captain Undyne led the young Soma Cruz through some much-needed combat training. Alucard perched on the landing of the stairwell, half-dividing his attention between the moonless pre-dawn sky visible through the open window and the photos he’d taken of his own face with his smartphone. He looked into his own wrong-colored eyes, into the deep, longing sadness he always did his best to keep hidden. But it leaked out, as all suppressed emotions do.

It was _mostly_ the right face, so _mostly_ right that it hardly seemed worth being upset about at all—which made those vintage wine-colored irises feel like an even more cutting insult.

Would his old friend even recognize him?

Lost in thought, Alucard brooded, as his kind were wont to do. On the windowsill, next to an empty bottle of wine, a lemon sat, its rind half-peeled away like an orange’s. He’d taken a bite out of it. And as he scowled at his own technologically-assisted reflection (mirrors he did not show up in—cameras, though, were another story) he picked up the lemon and took another bite, closing his eyes as his teeth sheared the meat of the sour citrus fruit and the juices filled his mouth.

Ah. Comfort food.

“I know you’re nocturnal, Alucard, but we’ve got a big day ahead of us.”

Alucard swallowed the mouthful of lemon and slipped the phone out of sight, relieved, if only for a little while, of his mental burdens. “Miss Belnades.”

Yoko leaned against the wall, standing halfway down the staircase. “I know. I can’t sleep either.”

“You have no need to be nervous.” He told her that knowing it was a lie, knowing that the oddities swirling around today’s eclipse were proving to be far more unexpected and worrying than before. “You have my word. Fate’s hand has once again made for your bloodline and my lifeline to intertwine, and fate will see us through.”

Yoko laughed. “Awfully romantic of you, Mr. Spock.”

“Who are these people you all keep calling me? Spock. Mulder. Smith. Bond. Am I supposed to recognize these names?”

The witch had still been laughing, and now laughed even harder. “Alucard, when this is all over, I’m getting you Netflix.”

“I cannot wait,” said Alucard, although he had no idea what a “Netflix” was. He gave Yoko a friendly-yet-awkward pat on the shoulder, then pulled his hand away. “Perhaps tomorrow,” he said, “when this is over, Miss Belnades, we will be friends, not co-workers.”

“Yoko,” she corrected him.

Alucard smiled uncharacteristically widely, his heart warmed. His lips actually parted, just a sliver, and he almost showed _teeth._ “Perhaps tomorrow, Ms. Belnades.”

Yoko returned his smile and suppressed a yawn. “So, uh… back to business. Any idea why Soma’s so important yet?”

“I’ve been giving it some thought.”

“And?”

Soma Cruz, seventeen-year-old foreign exchange student with odd taste in fashion and odder taste in music, academic overachiever, reluctant daredevil. Soma Cruz, pulled inexorably into the path of Castlevania despite no small amount of effort to derail him. Soma Cruz, the boy with the power of dominance over the souls of the damned.

_The power of dominance._

Alucard paused, reviewing his train of thought before proceeding. Soma had been under the watchful eye of the Agency since the day he’d been born, although that tidbit of information was not something Yoko was privileged to know. And Alucard knew exactly why, although, again, that was something Yoko was not privileged to know. Dracula’s domain called out to the boy, and Alucard had a duty to make sure it did not lead Soma astray.

“I’m not sure yet,” he lied.

Yoko squinted at the half-eaten fruit in Alucard’s hand. “Is… is that a _lemon?”_

“Yes.”

“Is that… a medical thing? Like the garlic?”

“No,” said Alucard. “I merely like the taste.”

Yoko shook her head. _“I have the weirdest coworkers,”_ she muttered under her breath as she climbed back up the staircase.

Alucard gazed out the window at the sky above, wispy black clouds on a starry field. Tomorrow was going to be a long, long day.

Thousands of miles away, the shadow of the moon slid slowly across the surface of the Earth and crawled inexorably toward Mount Ebott and the band of unlikely allies who awaited its coming.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's finally happening! They're finally going to get to the fireworks factory!
> 
> Asriel: *Sees a white-haired teen who likes fighting and has special powers*  
> Asriel:  
> 


	11. In the Eye of the Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, IT'S THE MOMENT YOU'VE ALL BEEN WAITING FOR! Welcome to... Castle Dracula.

_The world is a vampire, sent to drain_  
_Secret destroyers, hold you up to the flames_  
_And what do I get, for my pain?_  
_Betrayed desires, and a piece of the game…_

Julius turned down the volume on the CD player as the jeep rocked and jolted its way across the rocky, gravelly path that only qualified in the loosest sense of the word. “Hey, Al,” he called to the passenger in the back seat, casting a glance backward. “You ready for this?”

“You need not worry about me, Mr. Belmont.” Alucard busied himself with polishing the blade of his sword, wiping foggy clouds off the blade. Each swipe of his cloth made the mirrored reflection of the car’s back seat and roof clearer and sharper. “I have done this before.”

“ _Mister_ Belmont?” Julius chuckled. “Still on that, huh? Mister Belmont’s my _dad._ You can call me Julius.”

They drove through a military checkpoint. Beyond, blasted dead trees crowded on either side of the dwindling road, blackened and skeletal branches reaching out like the hands of the dead to claim the jeep.

“You’re not nervous at all?” he asked again.

Alucard looked out the window. The landscape said, “abandon hope, all ye who enter here,” but that was par for the course for land that got too close to Dracula’s castle, and it didn’t mean anything as far as he was concerned. “Not in the slightest.” He’d done this twice before already.

Julius turned the music up and mumbled something. Alucard strained his ears to make it out, but the music he was so fond of drowned him out.

“I beg your pardon?”

Julius repeated himself, just a bit louder, but also turned his mixtape up, so Alucard still couldn’t hear him.

“Excuse me. Julius, your music is too loud.”

Julius relented and turned the volume knob down all the way. “I said, uh, got any plans for when this is over? You know, once we’ve put the stake through your pop’s crusty heart? Metaphorically?”

“I do not.” Alucard hadn’t planned on staying in this world. Sleep for a few decades, wake up, fight Dracula, rinse, repeat—that had been his life, or unlife, rather, since the 1470s. The longer he slept, the more the world changed, and the less he cared about mingling with the rest of humanity.

The ethos he’d lived by for five hundred years rang in his ears, in his mother’s voice. _If you cannot live with them, then at least do them no harm._

“Yeah, neither do I. It’s the whole Belmont family quest thing, you know? It ain’t gonna _mean_ anything tomorrow.” Julius took one hand off the wheel to run his thumb along the coiled whip at his side. The legendary, hallowed weapon—the Vampire Killer. “I mean, it’s cool. It’s freedom, you know? If I ever meet a girl and, uh, you know, do the thing and make a little Belmont or two, Dracula’s just gonna be a bedtime story to them. And I’ll, um…” He thought for a bit. “Geez. What do I do? Dad fought Dracula. Grandpa fought Dracula. Great-Grandpa—Hey, Al, you knew my great-great-grandpa, right? Richter or something?”

“Great-great-great-grandfather,” Alucard corrected.

Julius shrugged and turned his eyes back onto the road as the jeep clattered over a sizable piece of debris. “You play an instrument, Al?”

“What?”

“A musical instrument.”

“Piano,” Alucard answered. “Harpsichord. Clavinet. Organ. …Harp, with a little effort.”

“Cool, cool.” Julius nodded. “I’m pretty okay on guitar. Wanna start a band when this is over?”

“A _what?”_

“You know, something like Nirvana. Or maybe more like REM if that’s your speed. Me, with my rugged good looks, I’ll get the girls, and you, with your, uh… the whole angelic radiance thing, you’ll pick up whatever chicks I miss, and you’ll have the guys covered too.”

“I beg your pardon?” Alucard struggled to process what exactly Julius was saying about him, and whether he should take it as a compliment.

“Some of them. I guess. Uh, never mind.” Julius put his attention back on the winding road to Castlevania, and passed the rest of the way in silence.

Finally, as the mad and twisted spires of the castle came into full view, Julius spoke up. “But really. You’re just gonna climb back into your coffin after this, aren’t you?”

Before Alucard could answer, a loud crack filled the air. The cramped interior of the jeep whirled around, a cacophony of squealing metal and roaring thunder filling the air.

Alucard found himself on the ground, feet away from the jeep. It had fallen on its side, crushed and twisted and misshapen, fire licking its battered chassis, its scratched and stained gunmetal-gray body. _I don’t remember this,_ he thought, adrenaline tearing through his body. _This isn’t how it went,_ he thought.

He tore his eyes away from the crash. The fingers of his left hand dug into the cold, wet earth; his right hand found something different. But it was a familiar feeling—the feeling of cold, stiff, lifeless flesh.

Lying beneath him was Julius Belmont’s body, gaunt and seized with rigor mortis, his skin so pale it was nearly blue. Alucard’s sword was lodged in his chest, buried all the way up to the hilt. A trickle of water ran across his face and over his open, frozen eyes as he stared sightlessly ahead with that young face, almost childlike, another fresh face offered like a bloody sacrifice to the ages-old war between good and evil.

And his blue-lipped mouth, open just slightly (as if Julius had been mildly surprised by something) cracked open just slightly, and a single accusing word rasped from out of his petrified mouth.

“ _Why…?”_

Alucard jolted awake and found himself, not in the back of a battered jeep, but rather on a worn couch in Captain Undyne’s living room, next to the remains of the captain’s swordfighting robot. Groggy, with a dry mouth full of cotton, he pulled himself out of sleep, cursing this fragile body he’d been imprisoned in.

Music filled the house. Alucard was struck by an intense feeling of deja-vu.

_Owner of a lonely heart_  
_Owner of a lonely heart_  
_(Much better than a)_  
_Owner of a broken heart…_

Alucard glanced out the window and saw streams of early morning daylight. Dracula’s castle, his old home, the home of his greatest enemy and own father beckoned.

Thirty-six years of waiting—all for this day.

_Julius Belmont—I have returned for you. As I promised._

–

Senator Edison Enright, the man who hoped to live in the White House soon, looked out at the throngs of people who’d turned out for his rally. And his advisor looked out at them along with him.

Well—there weren’t _throngs_ of people. There were easily dozens, maybe over a hundred, although some of them were just there to watch the upcoming eclipse.

This was a small town, though, a town Graham Jones knew rather well, and these slightly-over-100 people were a significant portion of the town. And besides, what they lacked in numbers they made up for in enthusiasm. They had signs. They had coordinated chants (okay, he had some of the other campaign people doing the “coordinating”). Some of them had painted faces, like superfans at a football game. Fortunately, no one had taken off their shirts to reveal letters spelling Enright’s name painted on their bellies, flattering as that would be to the oaf.

Enright had the rally all planned out around the eclipse, and if he said so himself, he thought it was a stroke of genius—even though it had been entirely Graham’s idea. He even had his speech timed to the moment. In this town, the moon would cover the sun completely, darkening the sky, at exactly noon. He would say, “If you let one of the other guys in our party get the nomination—” and the sky would turn _black_ , like a biblical plague of darkness— “it will usher in an era of darkness for America!”

The crowd would love it. And the news media would eat it up. It wouldn’t be the most well-attended rally in real life. But on the Internet, _everyone_ would be there. And, most importantly, they’d forget all about the daffy dotard’s latest gaffe. “Spanglegate,” indeed!

Graham was beginning to regret hitching a wagon to this man… but he was endearing, in an oafish way, and as long as there was a competent running mate at his side, that sort of buffoonery could go far. And spectacle went with him wherever he went… and although Graham did his most important work in the shadows, he loved being the center of attention, and if he closed his eyes, he could pretend all the crowds were cheering for _him._

Senator Enright cleared his throat and fiddled with his cardboard eclipse-viewing glasses. _“_ _Er_ _, Father Jones?”_ he whispered to his advisor. _“_ _Y-you weren’t serious about the world ending during the eclipse, were you?_ _”_

Graham sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose, contempt dripping from his voice. _“_ _Senator, please. Leave the superstition to your voters. I just said those things to drum up attention_ _.”_

“ _Okay, okay.”_ He addressed the crowd. “My fellow Americans…”

As the speech went on, the moment approached. Evening tones were creeping over the horizon, and crickets had begun chirruping, even though it was only midday. The sun had waned into a crescent.

Graham popped on his glasses and the crowd around him, the senator to his side, it all vanished—all except for an amber sickle hanging in the cloudless sky. Enright was getting close to his exact moment in the speech when the sky would turn black, and he (taking a moment to remove his polarized glasses, once it was safe) would look up to the sky, arms wide, and make his case like a Great Awakening fire-and-brimstone preacher.

Unbeknownst to Enright, this town—the town square in particular, and moreover, the exact point his stage was set up on—was the intersection of five ley lines, forming a pentagram. In the mid-eighteenth century, a natural philosopher—an alchemist—had set up shop here, amassing a tiny but dedicated following of would-be alchemists and pursuers of esoteric knowledge among the plantations. When the Civil War broke out, the alchemist and his followers resolved to use their esoteric knowledge to call forth unimaginable powers and drive away the Union soldiers.

Instead, they’d called forth something with _a lot_ of teeth, just as many eyes, and even _more_ tentacles. The town had been wiped off the map, and the bodies of the alchemist and his students were never found. From that day on, the whole area smelled of fish, even though there wasn’t a lake around for miles, let alone a fishing industry.

Enright had been blissfully unaware of the town’s occult history. Graham Jones had not been.

In fact, he’d picked this spot for a reason.

The wind grew chilly, the air grew dark. Shadows of the trees transformed to rippling waves of thin crescents and the chirping of crickets reached a crescendo before the sun vanished completely. When his speech came to its climax and the sky turned black, Edison Enright and Graham Jones both looked up at the sky and vanished from the stage.

–

On Mount Ebott, the day of the eclipse was warm and cloudless, and in the late morning, the perfect sun hung in the air as if unaware that today, over the mountain, it would be swallowed up. Ancient civilizations around the world saw eclipses as portents of doom—a time when the forces of darkness would pounce on and devour even the ultimate life-bringer, light-bringer, the sun which rose every morning and set every night without fail. They would cause panic, ranging from furtive and frightened whispers and cowering to gory tributes of blood. In this modern age, though, the only things eclipses brought with them were special spectacles (in more than one sense of the word), traffic jams, and a windfall for optometrists.

The morning sunlight cast dappled shadows in the garden, and Asriel found that after months of anticipation, the thing he anticipated the most was not the cosmic dance overhead, but the shadows cast by the leaves on the ground. As the sun slivered to a thin fingernail in the sky, the interplay of light and shadow would transform into clusters of overlapping and interlocking crescents of fuzzy light. But right now, this early in the morning, the shadows were still perfectly normal.

Asriel leaned back, thronged by a bed of yellow flowers, and took a long, deep sigh. Today was _the day,_ but not quite for the reasons he’d suspected. Now there was all this stuff with Dracula going on…

A hand fell on his shoulder, and Asriel nearly leaped out of his fur.

“Come on, cheer up! Big day today!” Chara reached up and tousled their brother’s hair. “Don’t look so gloomy!”

Asriel caught his yelp of surprise—but not _just_ surprise—in his mouth and forced it back down his throat. “Ch-Chara, please. I—I don’t like being snuck up on.” _Especially not by you_ , he thought (but would never say).

“You used to.” Chara took a seat next to Asriel, playing with the long white scarf around their neck. Beneath it was a pre-ripped jean jacket. Underneath that was a plain white shirt with “COOL DOG” printed on it. At least Chara wore jeans today and not sweatpants.

“Hmm.”

“Surely you must have more to say than _that.”_

“I’ve been looking forward to this festival for months.” The eclipse festival had been his brainchild, but he had trouble resisting the allure of the castle. A voice in his head, the same voice that told him to spend long hours at the office and pore over the minutiae of every bill and resolution, told him that he had to go not where he was _wanted,_ but where he was _needed_. And he was needed _there—_ he could feel it in his bones. But this was _his_ festival. “But I’m not sure what to do,” he said.

Chara picked a flower and twirled it between their fingers, yawning. “Well, I’m sure the pony rides and face-painting pavilions will be a real adrenaline rush. Is there going to be a corn maze too?”

“Asriel?” Toriel strode into the garden, calling his name. She looked around aimlessly before spotting him. “There you are!”

“Good morning, Mom.” Asriel waved.

“Not now, Asriel.” She sighed and shook her head. “It has only just come to my attention that you’ve canceled the viewing ceremony.”

“Mom, the festival’s still on, I just have some stuff that came up that I need the observatory for—”

“Why am I not surprised?” She knelt down, bringing her careworn face level with Asriel’s. “I knew it. I knew you would find some excuse. Anything to avoid having so much as a _minute_ of leisure time.”

“Mother, this is all a misunderstanding,” Chara said, steepling their fingers. “You see—”

“No, Chara, I understand perfectly. Asriel, you need to go back to your therapist. This is not healthy.”

“It’s not what you think—”

A black shadow flew up and over the garden wall, and a tall, thin man in a pitch-black suit landed on the cobbled flagstones snaking between the flowerbeds. He hit the ground in a crouch and slowly rose up, unfolding his spindly legs and brushing dust off his impeccable suit.

Toriel instantly zeroed in on the intruder, drawing herself up to her full height (just over seven feet), tongues of lavender flame curling around her fingers. Alucard immediately held up his hands.

Asriel took his mother by the arm. “Mom, put the fire away. This is my friend, Arikado Genya.”

The flames dwindled away. “Oh, how nice,” Toriel said pleasantly. “You have a friend.”

Alucard bowed and knelt down on one knee, taking Toriel’s paw in both hands. “It is an honor and a pleasure, milady, to meet you.”

“Asriel, your friend is _quite_ the charmer,” she whispered to him.

Alucard shook Asriel’s hand next. “Thank you for allowing us the use of your observatory.”

Toriel put her hands on her hips. “So, Asriel. Mr. Arikado. What, exactly, are you doing with the observatory?”

“I decided on a small, intimate reception to watch the eclipse,” Asriel lied. “With friends.”

Toriel eyed the man in black, peering at him over her spectacles. “Pardon me, but I don’t believe we’ve actually met…”

Alucard suddenly threw his arm around Asriel’s shoulder in a motion as rapid and unexpected as it was awkward. The man’s arm was lanky as a scarecrow’s, and about as rigid. “We were friends in college— took the same astronomy course. We were… stargazing buddies.” The word ‘buddies’ seemed incredibly unnatural coming from his mouth.

“And we were both in the same club. The, uh…” Asriel thought back. What clubs had he been in back in college? “The anime club,” he said.

“The fencing club,” Alucard said, at the exact same time.

Toriel’s face brightened up. “Ah, yes! I think we might have met once or twice, Genya! Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: How does the man in the moon cut his hair?”

Alucard blinked.

“‘Eclipse’ it!”

Toriel’s punchline hung in the air.

“That’s an old joke, Mom,” Asriel groaned.

“I’m an old lady!” his mother countered.

“Anyway, it’s just going to be us and a few other friends,” Asriel explained, telling what was technically the truth, even if he had to massage it a bit. A lot. “No politicians, no diplomats, no business associates.”

Toriel seemed pleased. “Ooh! May I join you?”

“No,” Asriel responded, almost before the last syllable was out of his mother’s mouth. “It’s, uh…”

“It is really more of a… ‘boy’s club.’”

Asriel took Alucard’s lie and ran with it. “We’ll be tasting craft beers, ordering pizza, things of that nature. Just guys being dudes. You wouldn’t like it.”

“Oh, how wonderful!” Toriel clapped her hands. “I am always telling the king he needs more leisure time,” she told Alucard, before walking away.

“All right,” said Asriel as Alucard’s arm fell back to his side. The two of them both breathed a sigh of relief. “Let’s get a move on.”

“Arikado, was it?” Chara piped up. “While you’re here, have you any plans for later today?”

“Yes,” Alucard replied by rote, and Asriel could see on Chara’s face the enthusiasm drain from them like someone who’d taken a swig of soda and gotten flat, tepid seltzer water instead.

Asriel shooed Chara off. “Go join Mom downtown. I’ll be right along, okay?” He leaned in closer to Alucard. _“_ _I told you I’m not coming with you,_ _”_ he hissed in Alucard’s ear. He did not live by the sword (or spear) anymore, thrilling as all that action was. This was a holiday— _his_ holiday—and he would enjoy it.

“ _I did not come here to recruit you,”_ Alucard replied, _“but merely to make certain the observatory was not… double-booked.”_

Asriel was miffed that Alucard would suspect him of shirking his duties. He _never_ shirked. Procrastinated, perhaps, sometimes, when the stress got to him. But _shirked?_ Never!

“ _How’s Soma?”_ Asriel whispered, thinking of the shivering boy he’d met the other day.

“ _He’ll be coming with us.”_

“And is that—”

“It’s his decision,” Alucard responded.

Asriel sighed. _“Let me talk to him.”_

–

Above the Royal Observatory, the sun had started to diminish. From under the observatory’s dome, anybody could look at the sun—the polarized dome intelligently filtered light to provide high visibility without exposing the eye to damaging and burning solar rays. It would have been the perfect venue to watch the eclipse, if not for one small oversight. As it turned out, anybody who watched the eclipse from _this_ vantage point would be torn from this earthly plane.

Asriel sighed. _That building cost millions of dollars_ _and I_ _can’t even use it_ _properly_ _._

He and Alucard drew closer to the observatory. The others—his friends Undyne and Alphys, Alucard’s friends Yoko Belnades and Soma Cruz—were already there.

“You know, I’d love to come with you guys,” he told Alucard, half-lying (but not sure which half was lying). “But out there—” He gestured in the general direction of civilization— “I’ve been planning this for months, it’s like a state function, a birthday, and Christmas rolled together…”

“Of course,” said Alucard. “Your obligations come first.”

Asriel guided the others into the vast and empty observatory, part of him wishing he hadn’t had to call off the viewing party. But there were far worse venues to see the eclipse than downtown—the action was all in the sky, and it didn’t matter where you stood as long as you could still look up.

He stopped Soma as the young man took a step toward the threshold.

“Soma,” he said, his voice low, “maybe you should stay behind, too.”

The white-haired boy shot him a withering look. For some reason, those dark eyes of his, and that intense stare, sent a shiver up Asriel’s spine. “No.”

Moody teenager. Of course. Asriel had been one too, probably. “Look, you’re here under my protection. I told your parents I gave you a summer internship. If you don’t come back from this, it’ll be _my_ fault.”

“Great; that’s a load of responsibility off my shoulders.” Soma walked past him.

“Was I this difficult as a teen?” he muttered to himself.

Undyne passed by and gave him a jovial punch to the shoulder. “You sure were, Your Highness. But cut the kid some slack.” She briefly filled him in on Soma’s situation.

“Oh.” So that explained the boy’s dour mood. “Captain, please make sure he doesn’t get himself killed.” There’d be no stopping Soma if Asriel’s intuition was anything to go on. That boy had fire in his eyes.

“Can do, boss.”

“So,” he said, raising his voice as Undyne reached into a large duffel bag and passed out thin, lightweight armored vests (Alphys’ design, of course) to the others. “I guess this is the point where the President gives his speech, tells you all how high the stakes are, wishes you the best of luck, and promises you all medals when you get back.”

“Don’t need no medal.” Soma pulled his coat back on over the body armor. “I’m bringing one hundred Nazi scalps back with me.”

Undyne leaned over to Alucard. _“You didn’t tell me the bad guys were Nazis!”_ she squealed.

“Um.” Alphys waved her hand. “I, uh… How do we _get back here_ once we’re in Dracula’s castle?”

“Totality here lasts four minutes,” Alucard explained. “According to our research, the four minutes outside translates to roughly as many hours within the eclipse. By the end of that time, we’ll need to return to the castle entrance, or else be trapped in the castle.”

“T-Trapped? In the castle?” Alphys cringed. “Forever?”

Alucard shook his head. “No, Doctor. Just until the eclipse passes over the correct ley lines again. However, that will likely be the least of our worries.”

Asriel glanced upward. The sun was disappearing. It would only be ten minutes, maybe, to totality—he could still make it downtown in time if he called an express cab. “Sorry, I really don’t have time for a grandiose speech. But I can promise you a feast fit for a king when you come back!”

With that, he marched out, sweeping his cape behind him, and hailed a taxi on his phone, resisting the urge to look up at the sky to gauge the progress of the eclipse. He’d call the cab to the side of the road, book it through the forest to reach it in time…

He jogged through the woods, every ticking second hanging on his head. It would be better to watch the eclipse with all those people downtown—everyone, noble and subject, parent and child, brought equal in the eyes of the first eclipse over the kingdom in thousands of years. He couldn’t miss it.

His heart pounded. The sky began to darken, and Asriel could feel a chill in the air. The forest cleared, and the road loomed ahead. There was a yellow-and-black cab waiting for him: perfect. He was going to make it!

Then somebody got out of the car, thanked the driver, and took off for the forest. The car sped away as its former passenger sprinted past Asriel, their white scarf slapping him in the face.

Asriel stared blankly ahead where the taxi had been just a few seconds ago. His brain started working again just a few seconds later.

_What was Chara doing here?_

“ _Chara!”_ He whirled around and took off in the opposite direction, following them through the woods, low-hanging branches whipping past him. The observatory loomed ahead.

Chara burst into the building, with Asriel only seconds behind them. Undyne grabbed at Chara’s scarf as they ran past her, clotheslining them. Chara’s boots skidded on the tiled linoleum floor with a cacophony of squeaks before they lost their balance and fell to the floor.

“ _What the hell are you doing here?”_ Undyne shouted at them.

Chara picked themselves up. “Why _else_ would I be here? These are the best seats in the house!”

Asriel took them by the arm. What was his sibling thinking? Had Chara given any thought at all to how _dangerous_ this was going to be? “Chara, you— _we_ need to leave.”

“Oh, come on! Have a little fun for once in your life!” Then they cast their eyes skyward and pointed to the heavens. “Look!”

Asriel looked up with everybody else and for a brief instant, through the transparent dome of the Royal Observatory, he saw what he’d been waiting to see for months—no, his whole _life_. Stars winked into view, dotting the sky, a pale and speckled arm of Milky Way splashed across the heavens from one orange-tinted horizon to another. The sun was gone, replaced by a black disk like a pinhole in the sky and surrounded by a golden-yellow mane of light. An eye hanging in the sky, black pupil ringed by a golden iris.

Photos and videos couldn’t do it justice. It was like a hole in the sky, and it looked _wrong_ in precisely the way the sun _never_ did.

And although Asriel kept his wits about him, although he knew full well what he was seeing and why he was seeing it, he couldn’t help but feel the same pangs of terror people from thousands and tens of thousands of years in the past had felt when they’d seen the sun vanish.

Asriel felt his heart skip a beat.

And then it was all gone.

–

Soma Cruz bolted awake, sucking air into his lungs, his chest heaving as if he’d been holding his breath for an hour. His heart pounded, each thump of his pulse driving a stake through his brain. His fingers scrabbled on the ground—worn cobblestones, not polished linoleum tile—as he tried to piece his thoughts together.

He’d been in the Royal Observatory with the others. A magnificent place, a great big dome on a giant turntable, the interior filled with models of planets and space probes and extra-planetary rovers. The roof was transparent, and fully polarized for safe viewing. Craning his neck, Soma could see the sun dwindling as the moon slid in front of it, just as he’d seen it through Mina’s webcam last night. The time was close.

There’d been a table in the corner with a big bowl of fruit punch and dozens of little plastic cups, because apparently someone hadn’t got the memo that the viewing party had been canceled. He’d drank a bit of it and sorely regretted it, because when the eclipse came to take them all away, the juice had twisted his stomach in double-knots.

 _The eclipse._ He’d looked right at the eclipse, and he’d felt like he was being torn off of the surface of the Earth. Like an extremely bumpy airplane take-off (or a crash), except a thousand times worse. And now the mountainside was gone, and the clear sky was gone, and the waning sun was gone. The wind was no longer crisp—now it was cold, thick, and humid. Electricity crackled in the air. Soma was chilly even with his coat on, the furred collar drawn up as high as it could be—it was cold, cold like late autumn or early winter up north.

Soma looked around and took stock of his surroundings. He was standing in the courtyard of an old, old castle. Behind Soma, a massive wooden drawbridge filled the aperture of a stone archway. Scraggly, half-dead saplings and yellowed plants poked out from the dirt lining the walls, like the rotting hands of the living dead pushing their way out of their graves.

In front of Soma, a gargantuan castle loomed. Gothic cathedral spires stretched off to infinity, vanishing in the fog and roiling clouds. The castle was worn and weathered. Some of the castle’s towers barely kept themselves standing. Dilapidated hanging gardens ringed the castle, suspended improbably from the sky in a way that no human architect—neither from medieval times, or the present day—could accomplish. And yet, despite clearly being in ruins, it pulsed with a sinister vitality.

A twisting, impossible feat of architecture wreathed in mist and clouds. It was a warped monstrosity, a castle straight out of a nightmare, stretched and bloated as if molded and transformed by the enormous hands of some eldritch god who sculpted it from clay.

Soma shivered, drawing his coat closer. It felt almost as though the wind was blowing _into_ the castle, tugging on him as though it exerted its own gravity. It… wanted him _inside_ it.

He took a deep, shuddering breath and closed his eyes. He could still see the castle, a phantom image of it, like the negative of a photograph etched onto the back of his eyelids.

The rest of the team picked themselves off the ground and stared out in awe at the castle before them. Chara nudged their brother in the ribs. “Ooh. It’s bigger than yours, Asriel.”

“Is everyone okay?” Yoko asked, taking stock of the courtyard. “No one lost any bits on the way here?”

“What do you mean, ‘lost bits’?” Soma asked, suddenly concerned about how many toes he had. He wriggled them all in his boots, checking to make sure there were still ten of them. There were.

“We’ve been taken to a place outside of time and space,” said Alucard. “Like flying on a plane, you can lose your luggage in transit.”

Chara poked their side. “Hey, you’re right! I think my appendix is gone!”

Alucard scowled at them. Chara returned the scowl. Their red eyes glowered, surrounded by fiercely winged eyeliner and smoky eyeshadow.

“This,” said Alucard, the howling wind whipping at his sable hair, “is the realm of Dracula. The demon kingdom… of _Castlevania.”_

Thunder crashed as lightning cracked from one gray-violet cloud to another, arcing around one of the crumbling towers. In the distance, a wolf’s howl hung in the air. Through a gap in the clouds, the moon shone, its surface tinged the brilliant orange of a harvest moon. It loomed impossibly close in the sky, like a twin planet to this nightmarish castle.

Soma looked up at the castle in all its terrible glory. _I don’t think we’re in Kansas anymore, Toto,_ he told himself, suppressing a shudder.

_Dracula’s castle._

_Castlevania._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALUCARD: "Castlevania!"  
> SOMA: "Castlevania!"  
> ASRIEL: "Castlevania!"  
> CHARA: "It's only a model."  
> ...  
> ALUCARD: "On second thought, we shan't go to Castlevania. It is a silly place."


	12. Dracula’s Castle, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Asriel and company get ambushed by skeletons.

In the courtyard of Castlevania, Asriel Dreemurr, King of Monsters, took charge of his subjects. “We’d better set up camp before we’re spotted. Undyne, if you would kindly do the honors?”

“Yes, sir!” Captain Undyne, head of the Royal Guard, dropped Chara (who she’d been holding up by their collar with one hand) to the ground, pulled a bundle of slick fabric from the duffel bag she’d brought with her, and set to work staking the bundle to the ground.

With the stakes in place, the bundle snapped outward and formed itself into a deceptively-large, peaked tent, its day-glo orange color a stark and garish contrast to the bleak atmosphere enclosing it. But then the orange fabric flickered, waves of static fuzz washing across it; the colors shifted to a perfect replica, texture and all, of the surrounding courtyard. It was nearly perfect: The only sign the tent was there at all were its stakes, a slight hazy distortion like heat rising from an asphalt road in the middle of July, and its open flap, which revealed the gloomy orange inner lining of the tent.

“CuttleCamo!” Undyne announced, beaming. “We got the idea from cuttlefish!”

Doctor Alphys, former Royal Scientist under the late King Asgore, fished around in the duffel bag and pulled out a little bag of caramel-colored earplugs and what looked like little transparent band-aids, along with a miniature switchboard. “W-we’ll stay in touch with these communicators. The plugs go in your ear, and, uh, the patches go on your throat. Just touch the patch to speak to the operator—th-that’s me—and tell me who to transfer you over to. It uses quantum signals to provide low- to mid-bandwidth voice signals in remote areas…”

Each member of the team affixed their communicators to their ears and throats.

Asriel squinted at the tiny caramel cap before slotting it into his right ear. “Quantum communication? Why haven’t I heard of this yet?”

“It’s er… still in beta,” Alphys added, sheepishly. “Alpha, even. I’d say it has an… er… eighty percent chance of delivering your message? Maximum?”

“Eighty percent?”

“D-data is hard!” Alphys protested. “You think it’s all just a bunch of ones and zeroes but there’s a _lot_ of them, and they have to go through all sorts of stuff!”

“Alucard, Miss Belnades, you two go on ahead,” said Asriel, “and stay in constant communication. You do know your way around the castle, right?” Asriel finished.

“Like a river, one never enters the same castle twice,” said Alucard. “Although, given its… predicament, it may yet be unchanged from the last time.”

Chara rolled their eyes, as if embarrassed by Alucard’s equivocal response.

“But I assure you, no one is more well-equipped than I,” Alucard said, a note of pride in his voice. “This castle and I have quite a history.”

“How does anyone _live_ here?” Soma asked.

Alucard stared out at the castle, awed by the imposing figure it cut in this netherworld. “The castle responds to the madness of its master, and its master’s madness is shaped in turn by the castle.”

“So if someone really, really nice took over the castle,” Chara asked, “it would just turn into Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood?”

Undyne eyed them suspiciously.

“Alucard and Miss Belnades can count on me to help out,” said Soma, thumping on his chest. He could still feel the fire building up in his chest as he thought about the events of last night, of seeing his best and only friend for years dragged away by the same men who’d tried so hard to ruin his life. “This is my fight, too.”

Asriel raised a finger. “Well—”

“It would be wise,” Alucard admitted, “to have somebody keeping a safe distance behind us, but…”

“If any of Solomon’s goons catches sight of Soma, they might retaliate against their hostage—against Mina,” Yoko pointed out, nervously fidgeting with the bolo tie around the collar of her red blouse. “That’s the last thing we want.”

 _To put things mildly,_ Soma thought. Here, “retaliate against” meant “kill.”

“And with hair like that,” said Chara, Asriel’s human sibling who’d somehow returned from being dead for about a century or two (Soma hadn’t bothered to ask how), “he’s bound to be recognized.”

“ _Excuse_ me?”

Chara held up their hands. “I didn’t say I didn’t _like_ it. Just that it stands out.”

Asriel clapped his hands. “Excuse me!” He snapped his fingers a few times, producing loud crackling sounds as the air between his fingers flashed into flames. “Yes, hello there. Asriel Dreemurr here, King of Mount Ebott, King of Mount Ebott, et cetera. I’m the guy you’re all supposed to listen to. Soma, _you’re_ staying here in the tent with Alphys. And Chara, _you’re_ staying… here in the tent with Alphys and Soma, also.” He pointed to his captain. “Undyne, you and I will tail Alucard and Ms. Belnades. You know. Keep them out of trouble.”

“ _What!?”_ Soma got in Asriel’s face. Asriel was taller than him, and had a mouth full of teeth, a good deal of which were sharp. But Soma was a bit too pissed off to care about any of that. “I appreciate the concern, but I didn’t fall out of a plane so I could come here and sit in a tent with my thumb up my ass—”

Alucard stared him down.

Soma rightly decided to scale down the vulgarity when staring at the face of royalty. “Uh, twiddling my thumbs, I mean.” Soma tried to make himself taller, but at the most could only give himself about two inches if he stood on his toes. “My friend’s in danger in there, and I have to do something about it!”

Asriel was taken aback—literally taken aback, stepping backward as if Soma’s frustration had generated some sort of physical force to repel him.

“Hey, Asriel, for the record,” Undyne told Asriel, “I think your idea kind of stinks! Let him come along if he wants! He’s got—spunk!”

“Yeah, I’ve got—Uh, you know, shark lady, that word doesn’t mean—”

“Also,” she said, crossing her arms, “I’m not leaving, uh, _them,”_ she said in a low voice, not-so-surreptitiously pointing at Chara, “I’m not leaving _them_ with my darling beautiful wife, the cutest thing in the known universe, the love of my life, the—”

Chara looked pained. “Oh, how you _wound_ me, old friend.”

“Well, they’re not coming along with us.”

Yoko cleared her throat. “So, Alucard and I are just gonna head out, I guess?”

“Uh, yeah, go ahead,” Undyne said, waving them off, but scarcely paying attention to the duo. “Clear a path, but leave some baddies for us, okay?”

She and Alucard silently departed from the courtyard, leaving behind the awkward situation.

“Uh, y-yeah—have fun!” Alphys called out as they left, waving a stubby hand goodbye.

Asriel pulled Undyne close. “Look at Chara,” said Asriel in a low voice Soma was just barely able to pick up. “They’re soft, and sensitive, and vulnerable; they wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

Undyne looked at Chara. They were picking at their fingernails. She didn’t seem to buy it.

“If you care at all about _my_ input,” said Chara, “I came here to spend time with my sweet baby brother, not to pass the time watching Dr. Alphys play dating sims on her phone while you go gallivanting around.”

Alphys’ scaly face flushed a deep shade of magenta.

“I go where the King goes,” Chara continued, tossing their silken scarf behind their shoulder. “And if you don’t like it, too bad.”

“Just humor them,” Asriel told Undyne, who was still very skeptical.

“I’ll pull my own weight. I won’t drag you down. I won’t get into trouble.” They put one arm around Undyne, who looked just a bit uncomfortable, and another around Soma. “Just the four of us. Asriel, the great warrior king coming out of retirement for one last score…”

Asriel tugged at his collar. “I’m not—”

“Brigadier General Undyne, hero of the—”

Undyne chafed under Chara’s excessive display of friendliness. “Um, I’m a captain.”

Chara shot a nasty look at Asriel. “All the hard work she does for you and she’s _only_ a captain? Treat your friends better, Asriel, for goodness sakes!”

Soma noticed the captain’s expression soften toward the uninvited guest considerably.

Chara went on. “Soma, the boy who laughs in the face of death… and me, Chara, the dashing and debonair interdimensional traveler extraordinaire.”

There was a moment of awkward silence. In the distance, the wind howled, and a wolf howled in harmony.

Soma felt uncomfortable inserted in the midst of all this family(?) drama. Not only did he feel like an eavesdropper, he didn’t understand what the problem was at all. “Can we, uh… get going? And save whatever’s going on between you three until we come back?”

Asriel snapped out of it first. “Yes, yes, of course. Come along, everyone.”

Chara’s eyes narrowed as they strode off toward the castle.

“Hey!” Asriel called out to them. “Chara, wait up! It’s dangerous!” He took off for the castle, leaving the cerulean-scaled fish-woman behind with Soma.

“He wasn’t always this much of a stick in the mud, I swear,” she whispered to Soma before dragging him along.

“H-Hold on!” Alphys scurried to Undyne’s side, pulled a hooded gray-blue cloak out of her bag and offered it to Soma. “So, uh, so the bad guys don’t spot you, take this thing! It’s just like the tent.”

Soma took the cloak, and marveled as its color shifted to match the scenery, texture and all reflected in the fabric. A modern-day invisibility cloak. It was indescribably weird to see his hand seeming to float in midair, poking just out from the hem of this high-tech poncho. The only sign that his body was there at all was a slight hazy distortion of the surrounding area as the fabric of the cloak bent and hung.

“There’s a switch in the sleeve to toggle the device. J-just don’t overuse it,” Alphys told him. “C-CuttleCamo runs on your body’s electrical aura, a-and if you use it for more than five minutes at a time, you’ll have to take about half an hour to recharge it.”

Soma felt for the switch and found it sewn into the inside of the cuff while Alphys continued to rattle off technical specifications. He flicked it and watched the invisible shroud concealing him waver and flicker before returning to a dull, opaque blue. Watching his body reappear put at ease a part of his mind he hadn’t realized had been disquieted. “Duly noted. Thanks, Doc!”

–

The entryway to the castle was a crumbling stone hallway. The walls gaped open, and clouds of bats flitted through holes in the walls, swirling in and out of the corridor. Torches flickered on the walls, illuminating in patches the moss-slicked bricks.

“I don’t like this place,” the captain growled, the fins sticking out where a human’s ears would have been (how _did_ Captain Undyne hear, Soma wondered) quivering.

“Neither do I,” Soma quipped. But that wasn’t entirely truthful. Something inside him found the castle appealing… _inviting._ Like it was _home._ “So… are we tailing close behind Mr. and Mrs. Smith, or…”

“It’s best if we keep our distance,” Undyne answered.

“Yeah, we don’t want the bad guys, um… what was the word?” Chara asked. “Retaliating?”

Soma, who’d always been an only child, really wondered what made King Asriel so content with having Chara’s needless, seemingly-omnidirectional hostility accompanying them. He wondered if having an older(?) sibling just automatically turned you into a doormat.

“We’ll stay back, take a different route,” Asriel explained, “and reconvene once they give the okay. Think of it as running interference.”

“Or we’ll reconvene once they call us for help,” Undyne added, “since this whole thing is _definitely_ a trap.”

“We should split up,” said Chara. “General, back me up here. Siege tactics rely on multiple points of ingress—” Chara seemed pretty eager to go solo, given that as far as Soma could tell they were just some scrawny twentysomething with not so much as an ounce of muscle or a single weapon on their person.

“We’re not ‘assaulting’ this castle, and we’re not splitting up,” Asriel retorted. “Strength in numbers.”

An animated skeleton shambled out of the shadows, a rusty sword clasped in its bony hands. A medieval knight’s helmet sat askew on its skull, and its bones were dull and yellowed like bad teeth. It looked straight at Soma and the rest of the gang, and its jaw creaked open as it trudged closer.

“Looks like ol’ Papyrus has family he hasn’t told us about.” Chara stepped out to greet the skeletal knight with a wide smile on their face. “Greetings! We are guests in this castle!” They bowed. “We mean you no harm!”

With a gleam in its eye sockets, the skeletal knight lunged forward.

“ _Chara, no, it’s feral!”_ Asriel grabbed his sibling by the collar and dragged them back.

Soma stepped forward, and before he knew what he was doing, he’d lunged at the skeleton, snapped off one of its atrophied ribs, and twisted the rusty longsword out of its grip. The skeleton stumbled backward, its sword clattering to the floor. Soma tossed the rib he’d torn off aside, grabbed the sword, and swung it across the skeleton’s neck. The skeleton’s head fell to the floor, its cranium caving in as it collided with the flagstones, and Soma drove the sword through the skeleton and into a gap between two stones with a level of ferocity that took him completely by surprise.

And then something swooped into the room on great bony wings, a humanoid skeleton with a long head like a horse’s skull, a javelin in one hand, a sword in the other. The tip of the spear grazed Soma’s chest as the skeleton flew across the corridor, and he stumbled backward, struggling to regain his footing on the slick stone floor.

The flying skeleton came around and dive-bombed Soma again, jabbing with its javelin. Soma’s ancient sword, pilfered from the skeleton he’d dispatched, clattered against the skeleton’s battered shield and shattered. Flakes of rusty metal shot across the air.

Captain Undyne’s right fist shot out—a prosthetic—trailing a thin guide wire. The fist shot through the flying skeleton’s shoulder, tearing off its sword arm, and embedded itself in the far wall. The skeletal assailant’s battered and ruined body simply continued onward. A slash from a great fiery polearm Asriel had conjured into existence cleaved off the tip of its skeletal wings, but the skeleton merely adjusted the angle of its descent as it continued to target Soma.

That was the problem with fighting skeletons: they were already dead.

While the winged skeleton drove Soma back, another skeleton knight, this one heavily armored, leaped out of the shadows. A lance of aquamarine lightning lanced out from Undyne’s left hand and turned the skeleton knight’s head into a fine powder. The rest of its body slunk to the floor.

 _What does this thing have against_ me? Soma thought as he ripped the javelin out of the winged skeleton’s grip, and with a feral roar, thrust it into the skeleton’s ribcage. It stuck there, like a crowbar through a bike’s spokes (Soma had some pretty intimate experience with _that,_ although that was neither here nor there), and the skeleton rapidly changed course. It hit the ground, its skull shattering. The wooden shaft of the javelin shattered.

The skeleton wriggled, and then the animating force holding its bones in place left it, leaving nothing but a pile of human(?) remains on the floor. A ball of light rose from the pile of bones, tracing an arc in the air; Asriel grabbed Soma by the scruff of his neck, tossed him aside, and stood in front of the light—but it passed harmlessly through the king’s body and made a beeline for its target.

When the ball of light sank into Soma’s chest, it was the same as last time, although somewhat less intense—whether due to diminishing returns or the experience being slightly less novel, he couldn’t tell. He felt warm fire and tingling lightning fill his body for an instant stretched into eternity.

There was little time to enjoy the sensation. A gust of wind ruffled Soma’s hair, and he whirled around and saw another winged skeleton charging at Chara from behind. He grabbed at them just as they about-faced and came face to face with the skeletal warrior, but the distance between the two of them was too great.

He had no weapon to defend himself with, let alone keep this lunatic alive. In a supremely irrational yet uncontrollable gesture of futile resistance he held out his hand; to his surprise, a javelin materialized in it, just like the ones these flying assholes were wielding. At first, he thought it was an illusion, but the polished wooden shaft felt almost _too_ real against his skin.

He threw it, and its aim rang true, lancing through the knight’s eye socket and embedding itself there, half pointing out from the front of the horselike skull, the other half protruding out the back. The skeleton was knocked back, but not deterred.

The knight threw its javelin, but Asriel tackled Chara to the floor just in time. They missed being skewered by a mere fraction of a second; the bladed javelin cut a tear in Asriel’s violet suit jacket as it clattered against the floor.

The skeleton kept coming—heading straight for Soma. Was he a magnet for these things? And now he had no weapon to use to defend himself and no one he could count on for support. Asriel was preoccupied with his sibling, and Undyne with a legion of reinforcements: armored skeleton soldiers that had sprang up from out of these dark corridors.

He threw up his hands—another javelin manifested automatically—and as the winged skeleton bore down on him, Soma thrust the horizontal javelin out, arms straight, catching the creature against its collarbone. He collided with the skeleton, the javelin protruding from its eye socket narrowly brushing past his ear, and was thrown under its wings, hitting hard against the stone floor.

Soma reached out, caught the winged skeleton’s atrophied leg, and was dragged along. He jabbed the javelin up through its pelvis, more out of frustration than anything else, but it seemed to hurt the creature somehow.

As the skeleton pulled away and put its distance between itself and its would-be prey before charging forward yet again with great gusty flaps of its wings, Soma pulled his arm back and threw the javelin. It sailed just over the top of the winged skeleton’s shield and through the creature’s empty ribcage, shattering its spine. The skeleton sailed onward sans spine, knocking Soma to the ground. He kicked at the skeleton as it scrabbled and clawed at him, forcing it onto its back. Its wings flapped weakly as Soma brought his foot down on the creature’s skull and reduced it to a powder.

Another winged skeleton rushed him, but was rocked by an invisible force that cleft its outstretched arms in twain. As the skeleton flapped its wings reflexively and convulsed in midair, a golden fireball from Asriel’s outstretched palm hit it in the chest with explosive impact, tossing its shattered and charred bones through the air like so much shrapnel.

A gaggle of skeletons pushed past the beleaguered Captain of the Guard—but they didn’t get much farther. With a single whip of her right arm in a wide arc, each skeleton lost its head. They ambled forth for a little longer, undeterred—but Undyne planted both hands on the ground and blue-green light shone from between the gaps in the flagstones; the ground crumbled as a forest of electric spears shot up from the ground, and whatever wasn’t immediately pulverized dangled from the spears, impaled. It was strangely appropriate for the venue. The spears vanished in a haze of sparks and static and the bony remains all clattered to the floor.

An eerie, fragile sort of calm descended on the gloomy corridor. While Captain Undyne, clearly exhausted, took a breather on the floor, Asriel held Chara close. His sibling seemed shaken, but unhurt.

Undyne looked at Asriel with an adrenaline-fueled grin. “Too much desk work, kiddo,” she laughed. “We’re both out of shape.”

“Wouldn’t’ve even broken a sweat ten years ago,” Asriel replied, returning the smile of a combat junkie.

“Yeah. Not a stellar comeback for the Spear of Justice, eh?”

The javelin fell from Soma’s hand and rolled a few inches away as he lay on the cold, stony floor. The adrenaline still pumping through his system kept his heart pounding.

“Are you all right, Soma?” After attending to his sibling, Asriel helped Soma to his feet. The king’s hands were light, as if he were worried Soma had been injured. “I’m sorry I couldn’t be of more help, I hadn’t realized how long I’d been out of practice…”

This was crazy. He was here in Dracula’s castle on a secret expedition, having just survived an ambush by skeletons, and the King of Monsters was holding his hand and telling him he was sorry for not shooting enough fireballs out of his paws. “I’m okay—”

“Are you sure? There was that light—”

“Careful, Azzy,” Chara warned their brother as they nursed a shoulder that was, underneath their suit, probably turning a very deep black and blue now. “He’s probably possessed now.”

“And what a shame, none of you have chopped your hand off and stuck a chainsaw to your wrist yet. Guess you’re doomed.” Soma brushed himself off. “No, I’m fine.” Remarkably, he _was._ He’d taken a few lumps, had a few bruises, gotten a cut across his chest—but all those things had vanished after he’d absorbed that creature’s soul.

He should probably explain that.

“Full disclosure…” He thought back to his conversation on the plane with Alucard. The agent had never told Soma he _shouldn’t_ tell anyone about his talent—and besides, he was among friends (or at the very least, allies). “I can, uh, absorb the souls of things I kill, I guess?”

Asriel blanched. “You’ve _killed_ people?” There was something about the king’s demeanor that made Soma feel as if he’d just severely disappointed his father.

“Well, I mean, there was this one guy who was made of blood and was trying to kill me,” Soma hurriedly clarified. “I don’t think it was a person.” _Was_ it a person? Oh, god, was Soma a _murderer_ now?

“Yeah, those are just homunculuses or something,” said Undyne (“Homunculi,” Chara corrected her), much to Soma’s relief. “No biggie. So you eat the souls of everything you kill, huh? Does that mean when you swat a fly…”

“Dunno if they have souls.” Soma picked up one of the defeated skeleton’s rust-mottled longswords. The blade popped right off and clattered to the floor. He tossed the useless hilt away.

There was the sound of heavy footsteps from down the hallway. Asriel noticed them first. “Soma, turn the cloak on and hide. These might be from Solomon’s side.”

Soma didn’t need to be told twice. He flipped the switch, letting his cloak flicker on and shimmer his body away. He drew the collar up to his ears, pulled the hood over his head, and ducked behind a chunk of debris that had fallen from the ceiling while a figure rounded the corner.

Coming around the corner of the crumbling corridor where Soma, Chara, King Asriel, and Captain Undyne had fended off the onslaught of skeleton warriors was an ancient and battle-scarred suit of armor, sans occupant, yet moving of its own free will. Soma sighed in relief. Just one of the castle’s denizens, then—no need to turn the invisibility cloak on.

But before he could get up, a loud gunshot cracked through the hall, loud as a sonic boom and reverberating off the hard stone walls. The living suit of armor’s chest exploded, and it slumped to the ground. Soma leaped back into his hiding place.

Interminable seconds passed as the four of them lay in waiting, frozen, anticipating the marksman’s next move. Soma’s heart raced. Had it been one of King Crimson or Solomon Graves’ thugs? Did they know he was here? What would that mean for his friends?

Nobody came down the hall.

Asriel and Undyne sighed in relief, then shared a concerned glance. Then Asriel put his finger to his throat. “Alphys. Contact Alucard and tell him to get to Mina as quickly as possible.”

–

Alucard and Yoko walked through the castle’s bombed-out central corridor, which (despite its name) took a very winding but mostly linear path around the heart of Dracula’s castle. The beasts Alucard expected to encounter—skeletal warriors, great big animated suits of armor, tiny imps and demons—were far and few in between. The castle was empty—worryingly empty.

“It’s usually not this…” Yoko looked around and took in the strange, eerie stillness consuming the castle. “Quiet, is it?”

Alucard passed a fallen winged skeleton, a long wooden javelin wrenched between the gap in its ribcage. He pulled the spear out, hefted it in one hand, and finding it wanting, snapped it over his knee and tossed it aside. “Certainly not.” He passed a stone column riddled with bullet holes and tapped on it. The column groaned and a trickle of dust poured down from the ceiling above it. “This castle… it hasn’t reshaped itself at all.”

“Well, that doesn’t sound too bad,” Yoko mused. “At least you’ll know your way around.” She ran her hand across the holes embedded in the column. _So these are from 1999._ The final battle for Dracula’s castle—a secret war.

“I’m not surprised,” Alucard said. “I suspected that only a few days at most will have passed in this castle over the past thirty-six years. However… when change is the only constant, consistency is unnerving.”

Alucard and Yoko wandered deeper into the castle, and found themselves in a corridor blocked by a massive skeleton, sans legs or hips, its spine trailing behind it like a tail. Its oversized head was caved in and shattered, and the withered heart dangling inside its cracked and splintered ribcage was shredded and riddled with holes. Its massive bony hands gripped a giant-sized femur which had snapped in half; marrow oozed from its exposed center onto the grimy flagstones.

Alucard stood silently before the slain monster, and gingerly stepped forward to examine it. Yoko assumed he must have been reminiscing about killing the beast himself—fond memories?

Confident that the thing wasn’t about to come to life, Yoko stepped closer, peering into its hollow eye sockets. As she walked closer, some small metallic objects jangled on the floor against her boots, clattering like dropped coins. She looked down and saw brass-colored spent shell casings littering the stone floor.

“This wasn’t here before,” Alucard said.

“You didn’t kill this thing?”

Alucard shook his head. “I’ve never seen it.” He seemed disconcerted by the creature’s presence, but pulled himself away from the skeletal corpse. “This was killed by men with guns. Recently.”

“Was it Solomon?” Yoko shuddered. Had the rogue agent brought an army with him through the eclipse?

Alucard moved on, walking across the ruined stone tile floor, passing by a cracked and shallow crater gouged in the flagstones. Moonlight streamed into the corridor through a gap in the clouds and a massive hole in the crumbling wall. Yoko’s heart skipped a beat as she looked along and saw an unexploded artillery shell embedded in the floor, its length and the tips of its stubby tailfins coming up to Alucard’s waist.

Alucard froze as he passed it, casting a glance its way and then focusing his gaze intently on its surface. With a crook of his finger, he beckoned Yoko over. “Ms. Belnades. Come here.”

Yoko drew closer with trepidation, the young witch weighing her options if the shell decided to explode. After running through what she could do with the magic signs on her hands, she figured that she had none. But she had to have faith that Alucard knew what he was doing. “What is it?”

Alucard gestured to the shell. “How long would you say this has been here?” he asked.

It looked like it had been there, undisturbed, for a very long time.

The half-vampire ran a finger across the missile’s metal skin, leaving a fat black line against the gritty gray surface. The tip of his finger came away coated in dust, an oblong, fuzzy gray patch stretched over his pale fingertip. “Do you think this looks like…” His eyes flitted from side to side, nervously, before turning down to look at the missile. “Thirty-six years’ worth of dust?”

Yoko nodded, but something in Alucard’s voice—the slightest hint of an anxious tremor—made her feel as if she shouldn’t have. “So—”

Alucard took a deep breath and a step back. “Time has been passing normally here all along.”

There was something in Alucard’s body language that told Yoko this was a very, very bad thing—but she had no idea why. “Why is that so important, Alucard?”

He didn’t seem to hear her. Alucard took another dazed step back. A sharp click echoed through the hall. “No, it’s too late,” Yoko heard him mutter, and as he began to take a step back, her eyes were drawn to his feet, where she saw, underneath his right foot, a dusty disk half-buried in the ground. She saw the heel of his scuffed black shoes just begin to lift up from the disk and felt her blood freeze.

Alucard had stepped on a land mine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Man, Papyrus' extended family sure is a bunch of assholes.


	13. Dracula’s Castle, Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Alucard steps on a land mine. Soma and Asriel fall victim to the crab cycle.

“ _Alucard, no, stop!”_ Yoko blurted out, throwing up her hands. “Freeze! Don’t move an inch!” Her heart fluttered in her chest, her pulse pounding in her ears like a bass drum. Thankfully, Alucard did as she said.

“What’s the matter, Miss—”

“Look down at your foot.”

Alucard looked down and saw exactly what Yoko had seen. A dusty disk lying directly under his foot, about the size of a frisbee. “Oh, dear.”

“That’s a landmine.” Yoko knelt down and took a closer look at it, brushing the debris away from the mine. Alucard’s foot wobbled. “Don’t let up. If you lift your foot—”

“Yes, Ms. Belnades, I know what mines do.”

Yoko pressed her finger to her throat. Her earpiece let out a harsh electronic squawk. “Hello? Doctor Alphys?”

“ _H-Hi, Yoko! This is Alphys, your, uh, operator. Y-You’ve called just in time, actually—Asriel just left a message for you and Alucard.”_

“Can it wait? We’ve got a situation.”

“ _Oh, um, I g-guess it could wait, if you’ve got a_ situation. _W-what can I do for you?”_

“Alucard just stepped on a landmine.”

“ _Oh, no! Is he… D-do you need a medevac? What’s the damage like? I-I’m a trained paramedic, you know, not just an engineer, but I’ll be the first to admit I’m not too good with humans! Or vampire humans! But I’ll do my best!”_

The scientist was stammering a mile a minute. Yoko tried to console her. “Calm down. It hasn’t gone off yet. He’s still stepping on it.”

Alphys took a few deep breaths. _“I thought landmines went off as soon as you stepped on them.”_

“This one has a pressure release plate by the looks of it. I didn’t think those existed outside of Hollywood.” With her heart currently trying to climb its way out of her throat, Yoko didn’t feel interested at all in small talk, so she skipped right to business. “Alphys, do you know how to defuse it?”

“ _Uh…”_

“That’s a no, then?” Yoko’s breath grew ragged. She was inches away from an explosive device that would, with the slightest easing of pressure, explode in her face.

“ _W-Well, uh, vampires can regenerate, right? Y-you know, anti-personnel mines usually aren’t made to kill, especially not today. Wounding does more to hamper an operation than outright killing does. If Alucard lifts up his foot, it’ll just blow his leg off.”_

 _This mine is forty years old,_ Yoko wanted to point out. “Alucard,” Yoko asked, “if your leg got blown off, would it grow back?”

“I am a dhampyr,” Alucard snapped, “and one with _greatly_ diminished powers thanks to our former employer at that, Ms. Belnades—but not a newt.”

“I thought you could regenerate,” Yoko said, thinking back to the injuries she’d seen Alucard sustain in their travels.

“Cuts, wounds, poison, yes—in minutes, or even seconds,” said Alucard. “Mutilation and dismemberment, though—that is much harder to come back from. A leg would take days. Perhaps even a week, outside of a restorative coffin. That is time we don’t have.”

“ _Yoko, I just got an idea! Y-You know_ Indiana Jones, _right? What if you found, like—a rock, or something, a-and switched it up with Alucard’s foot, really quickly?”_

She hadn’t seen that old movie since she’d been a kid, but Yoko didn’t recall that plan going so well for Harrison Ford—something about a giant rolling boulder. “Alphys, when was the last time you saw _Indiana Jones?”_

“Must I beg you,” Alucard asked, clearly irked by his own powerlessness in this situation, “to keep your discussion of motion pictures to a minimum?”

Yoko relayed the plan to Alucard. She thought he would instantly dismiss it, but instead, he nodded. “Find me something heavy enough,” he said, “and I’ll do it myself. There’s no sense drawing both of us into the blast radius if something goes wrong.”

Yoko stood up tall, straightening her spine, and scanned the room. How much of a fraction of her companion’s weight would she need? A misstep—both figurative and literal—would be devastating. “Alphys, how heavy should this rock be?”

“ _I—Uh, h-how about I call Undyne and have her come to you? S-she can lift—way—ev—heavy as—n—card!”_ The scientist’s voice cut out, interspersed with bursts of static before the line went dead. Eighty percent, indeed.

“ _Ah, visitors!”_

Yoko stopped her search for a large rock as a man with long brown hair and a red leather trench coat walked into the room, clapping his hands. Moonbeams streaming through the crumbling walls glinted off the circular lenses of his red glasses. It was King Crimson—the man who’d captured Mina and taunted her, Alucard, and Soma from half a world away last night. “And just the ones we’ve been expecting. Miss Yoko Belnades, Mr. Adrian Tepes.”

“‘Alucard,’” Alucard corrected with a petulant note of irritation, still keeping his foot firmly planted on the landmine.

The man ignored him. “Allow me to introduce myself.”

“We know who you are,” replied Alucard.

He pulled off his rose-tinted sunglasses and bowed his head. “The name is King Crimson.”

King Crimson strode past Alucard. “Ms. Belnades, what a lucky one you are. It’s an honor to meet you in person—” He paused, just in front of Alucard, oblivious to the baleful stare the half-vampire was aiming at the back of his head.

And then the man in red jabbed backward with his elbow, hitting Alucard in the stomach and knocking him to the ground. Yoko’s heart skipped a beat and she fell backward, expecting to see a plume of fire and smoke shoot itself into the air. “Alucard—”

But all she saw was a flash of bemusement from Alucard before his stoic facade went up again, and King Crimson knelt down and picked up the mine, laughing. He waved the metal disk in the air. “They don’t make ‘em like they used to, do they? This little darling’s nearly forty years old. The explosive compounds under the hood have long since broken down—fortunately for Tall, Dark, and Handsome here. I’d hoped it’d blow his leg off, but them’s the breaks…”

A squad of uniformed men in snappy scarlet military dress outfits—real Hugo Boss numbers—and black face-obscuring masks filtered in the room, surrounding Alucard and Yoko. They carried long black truncheons. _I guess these are the Nazis Soma was talking about. They definitely_ look _the part,_ Yoko thought as she pulled herself to her feet. She offered a hand to Alucard, but her compatriot needed no help regaining his footing. He never did.

“You’re here to pick up Miss Hakuba, right? Since you two came alone, like we asked, we’ll gladly hand her right over.” King Crimson fidgeted nervously with the mirrored aviator’s shades hanging from his neck collar. Yoko noticed that underneath his trench coat was a polo shirt, and underneath that polo shirt was another polo shirt. All three collars were popped. Half-obscured by his collars was a tattoo on his neck—a wheel with zig-zag lightning bolts for spokes. The scarlet soldiers had the same symbols on patches sewn into their shoulders.

“Unfortunately,” he continued, “I have other business to attend to right now.” He motioned at his attache. “Blutritters, with me.”

What he called “other business,” Yoko supposed, was his way of saying he wanted to steer clear of Alucard before the half-vampire severed his head from his neck. She could see a hint of bloodlust in Alucard’s eyes. The only thing stopping Alucard from murdering this man in cold blood was the danger to Mina’s life.

She had to admit, she could see why Soma had such a visceral reaction to King Crimson guy. He was a prick among pricks.

King Crimson walked along with his posse of Wehrmacht cosplayers out of the minefield. “You’ll find the path to your little hostage clearly demarcated.” He gestured to the door he’d come out of. “Don’t stray or you’ll find yourselves… perforated.”

As the man in red departed with his goons, a squawk of static burst in Yoko’s ear, followed by Alphy’s nasally voice. _“Miss Belnades? I-It’s me! Sorry we got disconnected, there’s_ way _more quantum interference here than I expected!”_

Yoko made sure King Crimson had gotten out of earshot, put her finger to her throat, and answered the doctor. “Alphys? What is it?”

“ _Oh, uh, I was gonna tell you before we lost contact—H-How’d things go with Alucard? Is he all right?”_

“He’s fine. The mine was a dud.”

“ _Aw, that’s great! Glad you two’re okay! Anyway, I wanted to tell you to, uh… hurry up? And get to the hostage quickly? Because, uh, we think they might think we’re up to something and that’s bad for Soma’s friend! Tell us where she is as soon as you find out!”_

“Roger that.” _As if we weren’t already hurrying._ Yoko filled Alucard in on the situation. “We’re on our way.”

Yoko and Alucard continued onward through the doorway King Crimson had entered from and found themselves flanked by soldiers. The soldiers all carried rifles, FN P-90s by the looks of them, and used them to point Alucard and Yoko in the right direction.

In the hallways further beyond the mined corridor, more soldiers stood at the meandering doors and exits to the sides, these ones wearing olive-drab fatigues. They didn’t have emblems from any nation on their uniforms, but Yoko recognized the symbol of Green Dolphin, a prominent private military corporation. These were soldiers-for-hire. She wondered how good the pay had to be to get someone to sign up to invade Dracula’s castle.

The soldiers watched Alucard and Yoko like hawks but made no effort to dissuade them in their journey. They merely blocked the paths the two were not meant to follow. Yoko caught sight of the bodies of slain, bullet-riddled monsters scattered throughout the castle—fresh kills.

Two of the guards they passed were having a heated conversation as they sat on a long and winding staircase. Yoko overheard a bit of their dialogue as she passed by. _“Look, mate, it doesn’t make a lick of sense. The castle is ours_ _now. Practically_ _._ _Why not just waltz_ _on_ _to the throne room and become the new Dracula? Thought that was King Solomon’s whole point here.”_

“ _You’re welcome to try, but you’ll probably end up like the other, like, fifty who’ve already gone down to the_ _c_ _ore._ _Best of luck, buddy. I’ll send some flowers to your boyfriend.”_

“ _Aw, thanks, that’s really sweet of you, Darryl would really appreciate that.”_

A third guard marched by, loudly shushed them, and boxed their ears, truncating their debate.

Curious and curiouser. This rogue segment of the Agency had obviously changed its plans, and quite recently too—but why _stay_ here then?

Alucard put his finger to his throat and spoke in low, hushed tones. _“Doctor Alphys._ _Pass this on to the others._ _The_ _re seems to be a_ _small_ _army here in the castle under Solomon Graves’ command—but the_ _men here aren’t interested in taking the throne room. There’s something_ else _going on here.”_

“This is a trap, isn’t it?” Yoko asked Alucard.

“It most certainly seems that way,” he answered. “It is only a matter of when they spring it… and what our friends can do for us in response.” He spared a furtive glance at the guards lining the corridors, put his finger to his throat, and began to speak to King Asriel.

“ _Things are becoming very suspicious here,”_ he whispered in a voice low enough that only Yoko could hear it. _“Your Highness, if anything happens to us, look after the boy. Look after him very,_ very _carefully.”_

–

Soma carefully climbed into the crumbling alcove he’d uncovered. An aged and weathered marble statue stood in the center of the room, with a dying fire at its feet. When he stepped into the alcove, he felt strangely calm, as if he knew that some force in the room would protect him from harm. He nudged one of the softly glowing logs with his feet and new flames fluttered from the pile of wood. Despite its small size, the fire filled the little alcove with warmth.

“Found a safe spot, guys,” he called out, and Asriel, Chara, and Undyne poked their heads into the alcove.

Asriel nodded. “Feels safe to me.” He gently nudged his sibling inside. “Okay. You two stay here and keep out of trouble. Undyne and I will go on ahead and take care of everything. That’s an order.”

“ _What?”_ Soma thought Asriel had wanted to find a place to set up a base camp, not find a hole to dump him in.

“I’m sorry, but a king has his duty.” Asriel puffed out his chest. “Actually, I’m _not_ sorry. I was against you two coming along from the beginning.”

Chara grumbled something negative, and for once, Soma found himself in some vague form of agreement with them. It wasn’t just that he was mega pissed about his best friend getting held ransom over some stupid Dracula’s Castle nonsense, or that he had an irresistible urge to clobber _something._ He was starting to feel a strange sense of… it wasn’t hunger, it wasn’t thirst, but it felt vaguely like both. And it was maddening—like a splinter in his mind.

He thought about the red orb that had flown into him earlier. _The monster’s soul_. A part of him wanted to venture out, find new monsters, and see what collecting _their_ souls would get him. It was a strange mix of curiosity… and primal _desire_ _._

What if he… No, that was a bad idea.

Soma rolled his eyes. “Yeah, whatever, Dad. We can just leave, you know.” He was completely aware of just how much like a stereotypical teen he sounded and didn’t care.

Asriel sighed, pulled Chara out of the alcove, and exchanged places with them. “Undyne, Chara, a little privacy, please.” He sat on the floor cross-legged and motioned for Soma to do the same. “I’d like to have a word with you, Soma.”

Soma took a seat on the other side of the crackling fire. He could feel a lecture coming along and resolved to smile and nod, not listen to a word of it, and then go on and do whatever he felt was right.

“From the moment you landed, I knew that you and I were cut from the same cloth. I was just like you when I was your age. I’d always get in over my head…”

 _I doubt I’m as hirsute as you were when you were seventeen,_ Soma thought.

Asriel held out his right paw over the fire where Soma could see it. “Look here.”

Soma looked. A faint white scar, long like a surgical incision, bisected the pink skin of his padded palm. He turned his wrist and Soma saw, half-hidden beneath the king’s white fur, a matching scar on the other side as if something had gone through one side and come out the other.

“When I was fifteen I got into a fight. Six on one. It was just me out there, so…” He conjured a yellow-orange orb of flickering fire. “I had to cauterize my own wounds.”

Soma couldn’t think of anything to say to that, except for squeaking out a shocked “You were _fifteen?_ _”_

Asriel nodded. “Actually, I’d just turned fifteen the previous month.” He sighed. “About two weeks after that, I got into another fight.”

Soma waited for the king to show him another war wound, but he didn’t.

“I was in a coma for the rest of the winter. I spent the next few months after I woke up in physical therapy. And…” The king glanced down at the red-orange flames flickering merrily at the statue’s foot. “And grief counseling.”

“What, did they drop a _mountain_ on you?”

“Close enough. Soma, I know every thought in your head. I know how desperate you feel, and how worried you feel for your friend, and how utterly convinced you are that only you can save her. Because I’ve felt that way too. But…” He reached out over the fire, put a paw on Soma’s shoulder, and looked him straight in the eye, reflected firelight dancing in the king’s single eye. “Take it from someone who’s been there. You don’t want to spend your youth like I did.”

Soma pushed the king’s paw off his shoulder and stood up. Asriel stayed sitting, but never broke eye contact with him. “If you know how I’m feeling, Your Highness, then you know why I’m just gonna tell you to put a cork in it.”

Asriel nodded, and in a voice far more genial than Soma would have expected, replied, “Yeah. I know.” The king held out his hand and a column of yellow-gold fire blazed into life, forming itself into the shape of a sword. He somewhat-grudgingly handed it over to Soma. “Fight if you must, but don’t you _dare_ do it alone. Understood?”

As much as his brain told him not to reach out and touch the thing made out of _literal actual fire_ , Soma took the sword. It was much lighter, easier to lift and hold. In fact, it felt like solidified air in his hand. “Understood… sir.”

“ _Promise.”_

“O—Okay, I promise.”

Soma could see in his body language that the king still had his reservations as he stood up, his violet suit jacket in his hands. “Now, I’m not a living armory. I have to concentrate a bit to conjure that, even when you’re holding it, and if you wander too far off from me, it’ll disappear. So _don’t wander off._ Understood?”

“Got it.” Soma gave the sword an experimental twirl, marveling at how easily he could handle it. With its weightless, blazing blade, he felt almost like a Jedi Knight.

The little alcove rumbled, dust falling from the ceiling like leaking rainwater. Asriel snapped up, stiff, tense, alert, and sniffed the air. “Undyne?” he called out. “You and Chara behaving yourselves out there?” He turned around.

And suddenly the alcove wrenched itself around in turn, shuddering madly as it spun 180 degrees. The fire in the center of the tiny room at the statue’s feet went out in a puff of black smoke. The aperture leading outward spun, and for an instant was blocked flush against a brick wall that sped past before the alcove once again faced open air. It was like a revolving door in a Scooby-Doo cartoon. Soma struggled to keep his footing and lost it, staggering into the king and taking the two of them down together. They landed on the floor, half inside the alcove, half on the slightly-slimy stone surface of the tunnel it now opened up into.

Soma picked himself up off the floor. Asriel shot up, ran to the opposite end of the alcove, and conjured a flaming partisan, plunging its burning blade into the bricks. The stone began to melt and run down the wall, glowing red-orange. “Don’t worry! I’ll have us back on the other side in no time!”

Soma peered down the dark tunnel, just barely able to make out something glinting in the gloom. He squinted.

And then an enormous crab with an iridescent, blood-streaked shell, wide as the tunnel it scuttled through and waving ragged and razor-tipped pincers, emerged into the dim torchlight, its claws snapping and letting out echoing cracks like gunshots.

Soma backed into the alcove. “Can you get us out a little faster?” he asked as the crab bore down on them.

Asriel glanced backward and returned to his work. “Oh, come on, we’ve got—” And then he took another look backward and shouted an expletive thoroughly unbecoming of royalty as the crab crashed into the alcove, wriggling its massive pincer into the tiny aperture and snapping its beaky claws. It grabbed hold of the statue and with one bite snapped its torso in half, showering its prospective meals with a hail of marble dust, and let out a monstrous, gurgling roar as a long, slimy pink tongue slipped out of the claw, wrapped around the severed upper half of the statue, and began to munch on it.

Soma found his back pressed up against the wall as the giant crab’s probing claw continued to snap at the ruined alcove. Molten stone dripped down the wall just inches away from him to his side, while the slick, prehensile tongue lapped at its surroundings. This crab’s claws were like a hungry mouth—no, another head, albeit blind and deaf. Like a crustacean Cerberus.

Asriel had his polearm plunged into the wall, cutting through it like a welding torch through half a foot of steel—agonizingly slowly. The heat coming off the wall was intense—the air around the wall rippled with haze and smoke.

 _I’m trapped in a tiny room by a giant three-headed crab,_ thought Soma, as he struck at the tongue. It reared back, a smoking black patch on the rough, bumpy flesh. _And I’m standing next to the head of a sovereign nation, who’s trying to Qui Gon Jinn his way out of this room._ _Dammit, maybe this_ was _a bad idea._

The claw shuddered and jolted the room, sending spiderwebby cracks through the ceiling as it forced its way further. Each snap was like a gunshot, momentarily deafening the crab’s prey.

While Soma’s ears were ringing, the king shouted something at him. _“What?”_ He caught a lungful of smoke and broke out in a coughing fit, each one tearing at the inside of his throat.

“ _We need to force the crab back!”_ Asriel repeated. He dispersed his blade and Soma’s in a shower of sparks. _“Away from the alcove! We’re burning up all the air!”_ Asriel threw himself at the wall, hoping that maybe he’d weakened it, but received nothing but a sore shoulder for his troubles.

He was right. Coughing fit aside, each breath Soma took was getting less satisfying. If Asriel hadn’t cast aside both their weapons, they’d have suffocated themselves to death. But the damage had been done already—and if the crab kept blocking the only exit, the rest of the oxygen in the room would be gone before they knew it. It soon felt like he was inhaling hot tar with each breath he took, and he could hear his lungs screaming at his brain, _“That’s not air, dumbass, what are you doing?!”_

Soma summoned two javelins and tossed one to Asriel, and the two of them and crept along the opposite sides of the alcove, wary of the crab’s secondary tongue as it swept the floor. The iridescent shell of the crab glistened in the flickering firelight as Soma came closer. The claw-beak was lined with tiny, but razor-sharp teeth.

Asriel held up the spear. “At the count of three, Soma—”

The tongue slipped back into the beastly maw, and the beaky claws came together with a deafening snap. The king kept talking, but Soma couldn’t hear a word of it. And then he thrust the javelin into the crab’s secondary maw. _Was that what we were supposed to do on three?_ Soma fumbled with his javelin and jabbed at the claw from the other side, but too late—the claw twisted and pitched to the side—now facing Soma—as Asriel’s spear found its mark. Soma could stare straight into the crab’s gullet and saw flexing, striated muscles at the back pulsing as a black hole where the two claws joined rhythmically expanded and contracted. It looked more like a sphincter than an esophagus.

The crab’s tongue whipped across the room, slapping against Soma’s head. The side of his head that didn’t get hit by the slobbery mass of knotted flesh smacked against the stone wall. He saw stars and slumped to the floor as the crab’s tongue whipped across the room and wrapped itself around Asriel’s neck. The king pawed at the fleshy rope around his neck as the tongue began to retract into the crab’s claw-beak, dragging him along with it.

The room spun around Soma as he dragged himself up, javelin in hand. Every muscle in his body was on fire, every breath he took like trying to inhale concrete.

He jabbed the spear at where the tongue joined the fleshy inside of the mouth and jabbed and jabbed again, twisting it. The tongue whipped around with its captive in tow. Soma jabbed further and the beak clamped down, shattering the javelin and leaving its splintered end in its mouth—but also biting off the creature’s own tongue.

The claw writhed and shuddered and pulled itself out of the ruined alcove while the crab screeched and squealed, letting fresh air flood the room and wash away the smoke and built-up carbon dioxide. The crab began to scuttle away from the alcove, down the slimy corridor to wherever in this castle it called home. Soma took as deep a breath as he could, deep enough to make his chest hurt. He’d done it. They were free.

The limp, severed tongue unwrapped itself from Asriel’s neck as he took his own grateful breaths. “Soma, you all right?”

Soma gently felt the aching side of his head. His fingertips came away sticky with blood. “All things considered? I’ve been better.”

“You see, I’ve got to ask that question,” Asriel went on, “because I can’t tell myself.” He tapped on the patch over his left eye. “Everything looks ‘all right’ to me.” He’d started cracking up halfway through his punchline and barely finished it.

 _Is this really the time and place for dad jokes?_ Soma wondered. _If this monster gets any more annoying, I could kill him and take his soul for myself._

 _Whoa there._ Soma grimaced. Where had _that_ thought come from?

“I’ll keep trying to cut ourselves out of here. You stay outside and keep an eye out for that thing,” Asriel ordered as he recreated his partisan and drove its fiery, burning-hot blade back into the wall. “Or anything else.”

Soma peeked out of the ruined alcove and leaned against the wall, letting the cold stone support his weight. He slid down across the slick and slimy surface and fell to a sitting position. The tunnels looked unlike the rest of Dracula’s castle. Like a mineshaft, or a cave network the castle had been built on top of.

“Takes a lot out of you, doesn’t it?” Asriel asked him.

“Yeah,” Soma agreed. He felt almost as weary now as he had felt after the plane crash. “Sorry about messing up back there.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Asriel grunted as he forced the blade to draw a straight line downward through the stone. “Thanks for the help.”

“No problem.” Soma glanced at the ceiling, his head still throbbing. Dust was still trickling from the gaps between the stones—and more. A fleck of rock pinged against his forehead.

The ceiling bulged.

 _Shit._ Soma forced himself up, stumbled and slipped on the slippery floor, ran into the alcove. The ceiling was starting to shudder in here too, and Asriel, focused single-mindedly on cutting through the wall, was completely oblivious. _“Your Highness!”_ Soma grabbed him by the collar. _“The ceiling!”_

Asriel looked up, understood immediately, and grabbed hold of Soma, and the two of them shot out like bullets from a gun as the alcove was buried under a mountain of rubble.

As he and Soma picked themselves off the ground and wiped dust and debris from their shoulders, Asriel put his finger to his throat. “Undyne? Yes, we’re both okay, just trapped on the other side. Wall’s too thick to cut through; we’ll have to go around. You stay close to Chara and keep them out of trouble, okay? Yes, that _is_ an order.” He pulled Soma along. “Come on. Let’s go.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [CRAB BATTLE!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9_VINMmsus)


	14. Dracula’s Castle, Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Undyne learns something shocking about Chara, and Chara makes their first move.

Undyne was relieved to hear her boss—and friend—was all right. And Soma, too. That would have been an awkward letter to write to his parents: _Dear Mr. and Mrs. Cruz, we regret to inform you your son was killed by a Scooby-Doo trap inside Dracula’s castle…_

“You guys _sure_ you’re all right?” she asked Asriel over her communicator. Of the four of them—Asriel, Soma, Chara, and Undyne—she was the only one here who was _officially_ supposed to be here (although she’d been far more comfortable with the kid tagging along than Asriel had been—the boy had moxie aplenty and took to swordfighting like a duck to water).

Asriel’s voice came in crackling with static. _“We had a nasty run-in with a three-headed crab, but we both pulled through. There are some dangerous creatures in the castle, so don’t you two move an inch unless you have to._ We’ll _come around for_ you.”

Undyne sighed. She wasn’t a fan of waiting. “Roger, boss.”

Chara plucked a sword from the floor. “So, oh captain, my captain, are we off?”

“ _You_ can use a sword?” Undyne asked, incredulous.

“Oh, but of course.” Chara plucked an ancient falchion and swung it aimlessly. They seemed more at home with a nine iron than an iron sword to Undyne, though. “I didn’t come here for sightseeing. I’m here to be my brother’s keeper.”

“You sure didn’t do much fighting against those skeletons.”

“I was caught off guard.” With not a note but a concerto of pride they added, “And I’ll have you know I was a student of Undyne’s Academy of Royal Asskickings.”

Undyne was unfamiliar with that school. It sounded like something she’d set up, though. “My _what?”_

“Not you, Undyne, the _other_ one.” Chara shrugged and let the sword fall to the floor. “Oh, with a minor in Papyrus’ School for Friendly Conflict Resolution.”

“Bet you squeaked by with a C minus in that one,” she muttered.

Chara ignored her. “Oh, uh—by the by, I couldn’t help but notice…” They tapped on their right forearm. “The prosthetic. How’d you come by that?”

“My—”

“I won’t deny it’s quite in-character for you, my friend,” Chara continued. “The Undyne I knew would go gaga over something like that. But—and this question isn’t _offensive,_ I hope—How did you lose your arm?”

As the words echoed in her mind, Undyne smelled blood, its coppery metallic tang, and she was back in that metal corridor in the Core, standing—or, rather, hobbling—in front of a human who was not quite human anymore, a human with a face she knew and glittering red eyes she didn’t, blood—all her own—spattering the walls and ceiling and pooling against the floor, and the pain hit her seconds later, a wave of screaming and severed nerves.

A different face. The same eyes. The same voice.

She grabbed Chara by the throat, pulled them off their feet, and pinned them to the wall. Her pulse pounded, her breath caught in her throat. She could squeeze and pinch their throat shut easily, but no, it couldn’t be that easy, it never _had_ been to kill that demon.

Chara’s eyes bulged. _“Undyne—what are you doing?”_ they gurgled.

“Don’t think you can pull the wool over my eyes,” Undyne growled. “You might have Asriel fooled. But I _remember_ those eyes. They were the ones staring at me while I bled out _after you chopped off my arm and leg, you cackling hobgoblin.”_

She let Chara fall to the ground. They coughed, grasped at their throat as they gasped for air, and looked up at her with confusion—or a very good forgery—written all over their face. “I—I had no idea, Undyne, Asriel only gave me the cliffs notes… I’m—I didn’t know—”

“Really.”

Chara stood up on shaky legs, brushing dust off their shoulders and rubbing at their throat.

Undyne didn’t have a clue how this invader could have gotten Asriel to trust them so completely—Zero had done a lot worse to _him_ than they did to her, or Alphys, or anybody else. “How’d you do it?”

Chara sighed. “I fell through a wrinkle in time. I was desperate—”

She cut them off. “No. I meant—how did you get Asriel to fawn over you? Hypnosis? Mind control?” She jabbed her finger into their chest. “Holding Toriel hostage? I bet that’s it, you little snail trail,” she snarled, “I oughta—”

“Stop that.” Chara batted Undyne’s hand away. She felt a chill run up her spine, setting her fins a-quiver. “I don’t want to do this.”

“Oh, we’re _doing_ this.” Undyne shoved Chara to the ground. She couldn’t maim them or kill them, or else she’d have to explain herself to a very indignant king, but she could hopefully scare them into submission. “You can’t fool me, ‘Chara,’ because I _know_ you’re back to your old tricks.”

Chara looked for all the world the picture of innocence. “What?”

“Don’t try to get chummy with me, and stay away from the King. If I think even for a second that you’re going to so much as lay a finger on him, I’ll kill you.”

Chara glanced downward, morose. _“We’re not friends,”_ Undyne heard them mutter, almost in disbelief. They let out a dejected, pitiful sigh.

Undyne didn’t buy the wounded animal act for a second. “No. We’re not. I’m not your friend.” Undyne pointed to the brick wall where the alcove had been with her thumb. “And _he’s_ not your brother.”

A part of her felt bad, being this mean, and she knew she’d get a finful from Asriel if he found out about this conversation, but she knew in her gut this stranger was just more of the same old Zero—no matter how loath Asriel was to admit it. Protecting him from things like _them_ was her job and she was going to do it, come hell or high water.

Chara stood up. Undyne felt her muscles tense as the interloper rose to their full height. Would they try to strike her down now that she’d gotten this close to the truth?

“Asriel _is_ my friend,” they said with a wry smile playing on their lips, “because he’s up to the challenge. I thought you’d be, too, but…” They turned their back to her and began to walk away.

Those words rankled Undyne. She knew Chara was trying to goad her into doing something stupid. “Hey! Don’t you run away from me!” she called out as Chara’s boots clacked against the stone floor. Undyne shot out her prosthetic hand, and it caught Chara on the shoulder. The cable between her wrist and forearm held taut. “Where do you think you’re going?”

Chara tossed an icy, petulant glare over their shoulder. “I understand now.”

Undyne reeled in the cable, pulling Chara back; they shrugged out of her grasp. As the hand clicked back into place she threw a fist at them. Chara dodged the blow and threw her off-balance.

“This world, this timeline, is nothing but a cheap imitation of my own. And so are you. You could never live up to _her_ if you lived a million lifetimes.”

 _This is it._ This was what she’d expected. Undyne regained her balance as Chara dove for the sword they’d dropped. With her left hand she generated a magnetic field and wrenched it off the floor.

Chara’s mouth gaped. _“Magnetism?”_ they blurted out. They glanced at Undyne in shock, having fully expected her old powerset and the old song-and-dance routine with the spears and the running. “Since _when?”_

“Long story.” She snapped the sword over her knee, summoned a lightning spear, and thrust it at Chara. They leaped backward, shocked, as the blade came close enough to them to frizz up their hair, but regained their balance with feline grace as Undyne pressed forward. “But you know it already, don’t you, Chara? Or should I call you _Zero?_ Cut the bullshit already!”

“You’re not just weaker than Undyne.” Chara caught her by the arm, and Undyne felt her own weight and momentum swiftly turned against her as Chara threw her to the ground. “You’re more of a coward, too.”

Damn. They were good—surprisingly so. Maybe Chara _had_ learned how to fight from her.

“It’s not fair,” Chara said, standing over Undyne and glowering at her with crimson eyes, “that _you_ should live when _she_ had to die.”

“And how’d you manage _that,_ huh?” Undyne got up again, closed the distance between herself and Chara, and managed a glancing blow on them with her spear, drawing a line of blood across their cheek. She grabbed their jacket with her other hand—her metal one—and let the fist rocket into their stomach, throwing them up into the air and knocking the wind from them.

Chara fell to the ground. Undyne raised her arm—

But the prosthetic part—from the forearm on down—wouldn’t move.

She saw a clean cut through the prosthesis’ metal casing, exposing severed wires and servo motors cleft in twain. Steam curled from the glowing, melted edges of the metal wound. How had Chara done it? Had they stopped time, like Zero had been able to do all those years ago?

Chara looked straight through her. “Don’t you dare,” they spat. _“Don’t you dare.”_ They took the opportunity to run for it, and vanished from sight.

“Son of a—” Undyne jabbed her spear into the floor, letting her frustrations flow through it like electricity down a lightning rod. “Soapscum!” Then she called Alphys.

“ _Hi, Undyne! What’s up?”_

Alphys’ voice almost made Undyne forget how much trouble she was in. “Hello, my gentle little chili flake… Can you patch me through to Asriel?”

“ _Sure—yeah, my lovely soft s-sashimi roll, just hold on! One sec!”_

Undyne tapped her foot impatiently as static filled her earpiece.

Asriel’s voice broke through the static. Undyne could never get over how young he still sounded. _“What’s the matter, Captain?”_

“Chara and I…” Undyne found herself at a loss for words. “They aren’t—”

“ _Oh, god, is something wrong? Are they hurt? How bad is it?”_

“No, no, they—” Great. Now she had a king to console. And she doubted he’d listen to anything she tried to tell him about Chara over the phone. “They’re fine, it’s just… something spooked them, and they ran off.” Technically, it was true.

“ _Oh, no! Undyne, they aren’t_ like _us, they won’t be safe on their own—”_

 _Shows how much_ you _know._ “I’ll head out after them.”

“ _No!”_ Asriel vehemently rejected the idea. _“You stay where you are—we’ll go after them together once I catch up.”_

Asriel disconnected the call, leaving Undyne all by her lonesome. Well—that had gone better than expected. And also worse.

–

Asriel led Soma deeper down into the tunnels, his fiery spear casting an amber light on the moss-covered stone. No sign of the Cerberus crab, thankfully: the three-headed monstrosity might be tougher to handle in these dark, twisting tunnels where it had free range of movement.

Soon the damp cave walls gave way to polished stones. It was strange how seamless the transition was between cave and castle. Dracula had odd tastes in interior design, it seemed.

Soma had gotten turned around so much that he didn’t know if they were closer to where they’d been cut off, or farther away. “We could sure use a map right about now.”

“Like one of the big ones you see in a strip mall,” Asriel said. “With the ‘you are here’ sign on it.”

“What’s a ‘strip mall?’”

Asriel shook his head. “We’ll just have to trust my natural sense of direction for now.”

They pressed onward. No scary monsters—or, was it offensive now to call them monsters?—barred the way, but Soma saw a few… remnants, for lack of a better word, littering the corridors. Actually, corpses would be a better word.

Asriel knelt down next to what looked like some sort of humanoid dire wolf, a pensive and concerned look on his face.

“You all right, Your Highness?” Soma wondered if the corpse looked like someone the king knew.

“Yes, yes, I’m fine.” Asriel took a deep breath. “It’s just weird to look at. Us monsters don’t leave corpses behind when we die, you see, we just turn to dust.” He stood up. “So, these things _look_ like me, but biologically, they must have more in common with _you.”_ Asriel pointed at the creature and directed Soma’s gaze downward. The beast’s furry chest was riddled with bloody bullet holes.

More people with guns in the castle, probably aligned with Solomon and that human donkey turd that did his dirty work. Soma pulled the CuttleCamo cloak over his head and put his finger on the switch, but held off on flipping it. He’d only have five minutes of invisibility at any one time—he’d have to ration this thing’s use carefully.

Soma and Asriel pressed onward, and found a human corpse next: a man in olive-drab military fatigues, face covered by a black balaclava. “Looks like the mon—er, like the _creatures_ here give as good as they get.”

“Nope. Bullet holes.” Asriel looked closer. “Oh. Great.”

“What?”

Asriel tugged at the patch on the soldier’s fatigues. “They’re a PMC—a private military corporation. Green Dolphin, too. I _hate_ these guys.”

“What, you’ve fought them before?” Soma didn’t recall ever hearing of any sort of military or paramilitary skirmishes with Mount Ebott, but then again, he’d never really followed international news.

“Not on the battlefield, no. Did you know that Green Dolphin soldiers commit acts criminalized by the Geneva Convention at three to five times the rate of publicly-funded military forces?”

“Well, you know, that’s the free market for you,” Soma quipped sarcastically as he crossed his arms. “It’s efficient.”

Asriel moved on.

Soma caught up with the king. “Hey, aren’t you gonna take his gun or something?”

“I don’t like guns.”

“Yeah, whatever, Batman, I kinda feel like these guys love ‘em.”

“ _You_ can take his gun.”

Soma picked one up. It was heavier than he’d expected. He dropped it. “I don’t like guns either.”

And then the wall burst open, revealing the iridescent blue-green carapace of the Cerberus crab as bricks and mortar rained down on Asriel and Soma. The crab screeched in anger as the pearly black orbs at the end of its eyestalks wriggled angrily at the two. The stump of its leftmost tongue thrashed as its beaky claws cracked open, revealing maws ringed with teeth like the serrated edge of a knife. The crab drew its unharmed arm back, snapping its claw shut—like it was about to throw one hell of a punch.

Asriel grabbed Soma by the arm and dragged him out of harm’s way, but before the beast could strike, a sudden hail of bullets pinged off the creature’s shell, a few ricocheting off the floor and hitting its soft underbelly. The crab bellowed, wounded, and punched its way through the opposite wall, scuttling to safety.

It looked like the two of them—and the crab—had wandered straight into enemy territory. A trio of Green Dolphin soldiers stood at the end of the hallway, guns at the ready. The leader of the pack stepped forward. “You there! You all right—”

“Excuse me!” Asriel stepped forward. “Put down your weapons, good sirs; I am King Asriel, Inheritor of the Delta Rune, and I come in p…”

Soma looked down at himself and realized that while he’d had the camouflage cloak ready, at no point had he actually turned the invisibility _on._ Whoops.

“Hey!” one of the troops shouted. “Aren’t you Soma Cruz—”

Asriel pushed Soma behind him, planted his hand on the wall, and a forest of staves made from golden light shot out of the wall next to the three soldiers, knocking them violently against the opposite wall and each other before they could get any more shots off. “Let’s go.”

Soma figured now would be a good time to turn his cloak on. This part of the castle was, it seemed, under paramilitary control, and they now had five minutes to escape it.

As he and the king continued onward, Soma noticed that Asriel’s hands were shaking. “You all right, Your Highness?”

Asriel glanced in Soma’s direction and stumbled backward, his eye wide as if he’d just seen a ghost. “Oh, uh, you might want to…” He waved his hand in front of his face. “It’s just floating there. Your face. People will see it.”

Soma tried to pull the cowl down over his eyes. He couldn’t see a thing. The CuttleCamo was only transparent on one side: the outside. “I don’t think this is as good of a solution as we thought.”

“We’ll think of something else. Let’s just get going.”

They pressed onward, and found themselves in a hallway flanked on both sides by small alcoves hemmed in by thick, ancient steel bars. Prison cells, by the looks of them—all empty.

Asriel left a trail of unconscious soldiers in his wake. Soma found himself jealous of the king’s combat prowess. “How’d you get so good at beating people up?”

The king cracked his knuckles. “I had a good tutor back in high school. You’re not so bad yourself, Soma.”

“Yeah, well, kids on the playground have been calling me ‘Benjamin Button’ since I was six, I had to learn to throw a punch.” Soma wiped sweat from his brow. _In fact, I threw so many punches my parents sent me to a boarding school halfway across the world just so they could be rid of me._

Asriel didn’t understand. “Benjamin Button? Were you a particularly… wrinkly child?”

“The hair.”

“Oh. No one’s ever made fun of _me_ for having white hair.”

What a surprise. No one made fun of the six-foot-tall beastman who looked like he could bend steel with his bare paws. “Yeah, if I could shoot fire out of my hands I don’t think anyone would make fun of me for anything.”

“You’d be surprised.”

They wandered down the prison block, and soon, they came across a cell that wasn’t empty. _One_ of the dozens of prison cells in the stockades had a gaggle of people people crammed into it, and Soma and Asriel couldn’t help but stare blankly ahead at the hostages, mouths agape.

Soma hardly realized it as he stared in shock with the king, his mind thoroughly occupied with processing the sensory information from his eyes, but the camouflage on his cloak had fizzled out.

Flanked by a quartet of black-suited Secret Service agents, New Jersey senator and 2036 presidential candidate Edison Enright stood up on shaky feet, brushing the dust and sand from his navy blue suit and adjusting the askew enamel flag pin on his lapel. He looked around, eyes wide behind his horn-rimmed glasses, his salt-and-pepper hair and beard disheveled. “Ah, hello, you two. This isn’t my campaign rally, is it?”

 _How’d this bozo end up here?_ Soma thought, gobsmacked. Everyone had heard of Edison Enright—and most people wished they hadn’t.

“No, Mister, uh—Senator,” Asriel said, taking hold of one of the bars and giving it an experimental tug.

“I was at my campaign rally. We had the whole thing timed to go with the eclipse. It was going to be huge! I have the best rallies, you know. Always wear my monogrammed rallying boots, that’s how I do it.”

“Uh-huh,” Asriel said, clearly letting the man’s asinine (possibly senile?) rambling run right through his floppy ears. He pulled on the bar again, flakes of rust coming off on his hands and clinging to his fur as the metal rod shook and trembled.

“Next thing I know I’m surrounded by all these terrorists. Think some of ‘em might’ve been proper God-fearing Americans, though, because they didn’t take kindly to rounding us up…” The senator chuckled. “They were all killed, poor guys.”

Huh. Sounded like there’d been a schism or something. Soma filed that fact away for later.

“Stand back, sir.” Asriel conjured a long polearm made of gold fire and cut the prison cell’s bars down. The severed lengths of iron clattered to the floor, edges glowing orange and releasing curls of smoke.

Senator Enright gingerly stepped over the severed stumps of the bars and started profusely shaking Asriel’s hand. “Thank you, thank you so much. You know, you monster folk aren’t so bad!”

Asriel diplomatically poured on the flattery. “Well, you know, saving the future President is all in a day’s work for a guy like me.”

“Good to know.” Enright clapped Asriel on the back and, pulled a sticker sheet from under his suit coat, and stuck it on the King’s chest. “Vote Edison for a brighter future.”

“Mr. Edison, as a head of state myself, it would be gauche of me to openly endorse any single candidate—”

Then he started planting stickers on everybody’s chests, too, even the rest of his campaign team. He plastered one to Soma’s invisibility cloak. “Young man. You _are_ a man, right? And a young one? Will you be of voting age next November?”

“Sorry, I’m voting for John Cena,” Soma snickered.

Enright shrugged. “Oh, well, that’s a relief.”

Soma removed his sticker and let it flutter to the floor as soon as the senator had broken eye contact with him.

Behind the Secret Service agents, another man climbed out of the cell. He wore an impeccable white suit over his slight frame, gray hair framing a thin face. This man looked like David Bowie circa the 1980s, if David Bowie had started prematurely aging. “Father Graham Jones,” he introduced himself, shaking Asriel’s hand with a not-entirely-hidden look of faint revulsion that contrasted sharply with the smile he’d had on earlier. “Religious advisor to the senator. Mr. Asriel, I’ve heard so much about you.”

“All good things, I hope.” Asriel shook his hand gingerly. “Pleased to meet you, Father Jones.”

“Ah, yes. The ‘sick man’ of Mount Ebott. Your complexion has improved, Your Highness.” Soma noticed that Graham’s hand had gone white as Asriel’s grip tightened around it. The priest glanced over at him, and, unnervingly, Soma felt as though he was being X-rayed. “And who is this? Why, Your Highness, he’s nearly your spitting image. A half-human half-brother?”

“Hey!” Soma called out, rankled by the insinuation as much as Asriel was. At his side, Asriel looked just about ready to knock all of Graham’s perfect televangelist teeth out of his perfect televangelist mouth.

Breaking ranks with Asriel, Graham approached him and shook his hand with a smile. “Young boy, you seem awfully young to be trekking around a place like this. Perhaps you should… stay close to us, hmm?”

Soma pulled his hand away. “No thanks, Mr. Jones. I’ve got a mission.”

“Oh?” Graham’s smile turned wry. “What a coincidence. I, too, have a mission… I just left it to help the Enright campaign, actually…” He chuckled at the little joke, and Soma nervously joined in. Bad guys didn’t crack dad jokes, Soma decided. Graham may have been a bit of an asshole, but he seemed harmless. _This man is j_ _ust another dotard wasting space in this castle._

“Have there been any other people locked up here?” Soma asked. “Besides you? A girl about my age, maybe?”

Graham stroked his chin. “Oh, yes, there was. She was very frightened. But… very nice. They moved her a few hours ago.”

“Where’d they take her?”

Graham laughed. “You don’t think they _told_ us, do you?”

Drat. That was a dead end.

“We’ve got a friend at a base camp in the front yard of the castle,” Asriel told Senator Enright. “Please, allow me to escort you there.”

The Secret Service agents muscled in. “We’ll take it from here, Your Highness.”

Enright clapped Asriel heartily on the shoulder. “Appreciate the offer, though, kid!” He let out a belly laugh. “I hope that wasn’t offensive. Was it?”

Asriel shrugged as the agents led the senator and his campaign team down the hall. “It would be nice if that was the worst thing you could call me.”

Soma watched them go. “They’re gonna get themselves killed, aren’t they?” he asked Asriel in a low voice.

Asriel let the gaggle of incredibly high-profile political figures walk away with nothing but a dismissive shrug, clearly hoping Graham met some ignoble fate at the hands of a giant crab or something. “Well, _we_ got this far, didn’t we?” He paced up the hallway. “Now, this has been a nice detour, but we have to get back to the Captain. My sibling’s lost, alone, and probably terrified out of their mind right now.”

 _What a coincidence,_ Soma thought. _So’s_ _Mina_ _._ “I know how you feel, Your Highness.” Soma considered putting his hand on the king’s shoulder but figured that might be weird or disrespectful. He wondered if he should ditch the king and strike out on his own—Mina was much, much higher on his priorities list than Chara was.

–

Speaking of Chara—they were lost. Since the fight with Undyne, they’d just been wandering the castle in a sort of dazed depressive fugue. Undyne’s words had kept ringing in their ears long after they’d run off. _I’m not your friend, and he’s not your brother._

She was right, wasn’t she? This wasn’t Chara’s universe; it might look like their home in so many ways, and their friends might look like their friends and their family might look like their family… but it wasn’t the same. This was a world free of their fingerprints, despite what the captain may have thought, and it was a profoundly _lonely_ world for it. A world filled with people they knew—who didn’t know _them._

It wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t fair that the Undyne who’d sparred with them, who’d taught them to throw a punch, who’d laughed at cheesy old anime OVAs with them, who’d stuck with them through thick and thin, who’d turned to dust before their eyes at the end of all things, _that_ Undyne, was truly gone forever.

No one could replace her. Even _Undyne_ could not replace Undyne.

Chara’s musings were soon interrupted.

Loitering in front of the staircase to the castle’s upper levels, a despondent guard bored out of his skull pulled the bottom of his balaclava up over his nose and stuck a cigarette in his mouth. “Got a light, mate?” he asked the staircase’s other guard.

The second guard shook his head. “Seriously? Aren’t those things illegal?”

“You’re telling me you don’t have a cigarette lighter ‘cuz they banned cigarettes?” The first guard pulled the cigarette out of his mouth and scowled at it, as if he could will it to burst into flames.

“Y’know, when you put it _that_ way, it actually makes perfect sense.”

The first guard noticed Chara walk by. “Hey! Hey you!”

Still in a bit of a fugue state, Chara hadn’t noticed they’d walked into the guards’ line of sight, and they tried their hardest to quell their panic. They stopped in mid-step and pointed at themselves, jabbing their finger into their chest. “W-who? Me? I’m sorry, officers, am I not _supposed_ to be here?”

“O-of course, our mistake.” the second guard stammered, kicking his partner in the shin. “He’s very sorry, he didn’t recognize you as one of Solomon’s men.”

“Look, I didn’t mean anything, I swear,” the first guard pleaded. “I-in fact, I was just going to ask if you had a light.” He lifted his currently-unlit cigarette.

If that was all the guard wanted, Chara could happily oblige. They gently pulled the cigarette out of the first guard’s hand and snapped their fingers, producing no flame. And yet the cigarette’s tip glowed orange and smoke began to curl from its end.

Chara’s magical fire, unlike their brother’s golden flames or their mother’s lavender, burned invisibly, almost like alcohol fumes set alight, fading into a phantasmal silvery color at higher strengths and concentrations. And it burned cold where it needed to and hot where it needed to, producing smoke rarely and ash never.

They had always thought of their “Invisible Sun” (as they called it) as quite a gift—a benefit of their custom-built body, an accidental hybrid of human and monster—and the guard seemed to think so as well. He wasn’t at all unnerved that Chara could conjure such magic—the others of “Solomon’s men” must have similarly strange powers.

“Thanks, you’re a lifesaver.” The guard took the cigarette back and took a long drag from it, then exhaled a long stream of smoke. “You’re gonna keep this between us, right?”

“Oh, yes, certainly.” Feeling much more chummy, Chara planted themselves between the two guards and planted their hands on their shoulders. “So, my masochistic militaristic mates, where _does_ this staircase lead, again?”

The two guards shot glances across Chara’s nose at each other. “T-the ballroom, I think?”

“No, no, the throne room.”

“Clear your head, bud. The ballroom _leads_ to the throne room.”

“You gotta go _down_ to get to the throne room.”

“No way! The throne room’s at the highest point in the castle, doofus.”

“You’re off your head. Check the map again.”

“I don’t have the map. I thought _you_ had the map.”

The guard turned to Chara. “Well, anyway, we haven’t cleared it out yet. Still full of monsters.”

“And not the friendly kind.”

“So we aren’t to let anyone in.”

Chara’s eyes widened. _The throne room? As in_ Dracula’s _throne room?_ And it was _empty,_ they recalled from what little of Alucard’s exposition they’d picked up.

Awaiting a ruler… _could it be?_

Had it been a cosmic accident that had brought them to this world from their own dead-end timeline… or the hand of _fate?_

“Can you make an exception for me?” Chara asked.

The guards were resolute. “No,” one said. “Absolutely not,” said the other.

“I did you people a favor, didn’t I?” They put on their best puppy-dog eyes. “Please?”

“A-are you sure this is one of Solomon’s men?” one of the guards loudly whispered to the other.

Chara blanched. There went their cover. The guards would reach for their guns and turn on them any second now—

Their hands traveled to the two guards’ chests, and in a panic, a burst of silvery, ghostly fire from Chara’s palms pierced their hearts, passing through flesh and bone like phantoms and boiling their organs alone. At once both guards screamed and collapsed limply to the floor, smoke and steam pouring from their open mouths and curling around the ceiling.

Still trembling from anxiety, Chara nudged the corpses aside and scampered up the staircase.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STAND MASTER: CHARA DREEMURR  
> STAND NAME: [INVISIBLE SUN]


	15. Dracula’s Castle, Part IV

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Alucard and Yoko find what they came for. An old enemy meets its end. Chara makes some new friends.

Dracula’s castle had an exceptionally well-stocked library; the shelves lining the long, wide-open rooms beneath the chapel were packed so thick that one could hardly shove a sheet of paper between any two given books. Multi-story bookshelves stood in parallel rows, in perpendicular columns, intersecting each other at acute and obtuse angles alike, perilous catwalks made from polished wood lining the taller ones. Stone and jade columns punctuated the labyrinthine arrangement of shelves, dotted with torches that filled the gargantuan study with a feeble twilighty glow, and corridors of green-veined marble ran from one chamber to another.

Alucard and Yoko Belnades stood on the second-highest level of a five-story chamber, hugging the thin hardwood footpath that ran along the shelves and (in Yoko’s case), trying to avoid peering down into the dizzying depths below. There weren’t any guards stationed here, setting Yoko ill at ease. She wondered if Solomon’s troops had led Alucard and her into the waiting lair of some evil, murderous creature.

The balcony creaked, and Yoko shot a glance behind her, seeing on the level beneath her, a figure in a yellow robe climb down a ladder and further into the darkness, and when they vanished, an electric crackle like a surge of static blossoming through the atmosphere.

She ran her fingers along a shelf and pulled them away, her fingertips coated in a thick layer of dust. She sniffed the air. It smelled like a used bookstore, if no one had set foot in it in years and the owner’s cat had long since become mummified. A musty, dusty odor, mixed with a faint but noticeable stench of decay. She slid a book out and flipped through it, finding an ancient text of alchemy. With a note of pride in herself, she found the magic circles and formulas scrawled in its pages quite recognizable—and even saw a few mistakes here and there. “Is it anything like you remember, Alucard?”

“Not quite as large as before.”

“Really. A bigger library than this? Must’ve had to downsize.” Yoko pulled a book off the shelf. It was so tightly wedged into the bookshelf that pulling it free was like pulling a brick out of a wall. _Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone._ First edition, to boot. Unfortunately, it was a little damp, and reeked of mildew. “Dracula’s got _Harry Potter_ in his library?”

“My father was nothing if not well-read.”

Yoko flipped open to the center of the book. The text was blotched and runny, but it was _Harry Potter,_ all right. But this edition seemed to have extra illustrations in it—and in color, too. There was one on the center of the left page that didn’t seem to match the originals. A lone figure, indistinct but dressed in yellow, standing at the end of a long black tunnel.

“But how?” She clapped the book shut and shoved it back on the shelf. “What, would he pop out of his castle and head down to Half Price Books? Or does Amazon deliver to extra-dimensional demon castles?”

“The castle itself keeps the library well stocked. You must remember, Miss Belnades, it is a living thing. It has wants and needs… Needs such as…” Alucard’s finger fell upon a book’s spine. _“The Essential Post-Menopausal Women’s Guide to Roofing,_ I suppose.”

Something hissed in her ear, behind her. Yoko whirled around, heart pounding, her fingers primed on the circles traced on her palm, but there was nothing behind the young witch. “Alucard, I heard something behind me.”

“There are plenty of strange and frightening creatures here, but they will pay us no mind,” Alucard reassured her. “Probably.”

_Probably._ What a relief _that_ was. Yoko peered at the spines of the books—some had titles, some were blank. There were books of every language here, arranged in no apparent order. Each book was covered with a thick layer of dust.

One title caught her eye. _Economics of the Post-Climate Revolution._ Published date: August, 20 34 . “How are there _new_ books in here?”

“The castle keeps the library well stocked,” Alucard repeated. “Sometimes it even catalogs books that haven’t been written yet.”

“How?”

“Dracula’s castle has always been just a little unhinged from time and space,” Alucard explained. He pulled a large chemistry book out of the shelf, with just a little difficulty, and spun it on his finger like a basketball in the hands of a Harlem Globetrotter. Yoko nearly laughed out loud at the sight. “Once, when I was a boy, my mother and I were in the library—this was in the 15th century, mind you—and we found a curious little tome called _A Brief History of Time_ _.”_ He slid the book back into its place on the shelf. “Mother loved it, although she found it hard to comprehend.”

“You’re making that up.” Yoko looked at Alucard, expecting his completely deadpan expression to crack at any moment. It was an unusual expectation to have, and Yoko was a little unnerved to see Alucard in such a playful mood. Despite the odd and concerning situation presenting itself, Alucard seemed at home in the castle.

Then again, five hundred years ago, it _had_ been his home.

“You _are_ making that up, right?” Yoko asked. “Is this revenge for all those dumb flat Earth theories I tried to trick you into believing?”

Two soldiers in gray fatigues met Alucard and Yoko further down the twisting corridor created by the winding bookshelves. “You two.” The guard on the left raised his rifle. “Have you come alone?”

“Alone,” Alucard confirmed, “and unarmed.” He held up his hands, palms outward, and Yoko did the same.

The guard on the left gestured to the sheathed sword at Alucard’s side. “What about that?”

“A gift from a friend.”

“Sorry, sir, we’ll have to hold that for you.”

Alucard unhooked the sword from his belt. “My apologies, but I am afraid it is one-of-a-kind. I cannot risk parting with it.”

“Sorry. Boss’s orders—no weapons beyond this point.”

“ _It’s a trap,”_ Yoko reminded Alucard.

“Most certainly,” he agreed. Alucard unsheathed the sword. “I believe I have a compromise.”

The guards both took hurried steps back as Alucard raised the sword and threw it up into the air. The blade slid all the way into the high marble ceiling, and the sword stuck there, its hilt hanging down like a stalactite in this cavernous library. “I will pick it up on my way out.”

“ _Are you sure—”_ Yoko whispered.

“I know what I am doing.”

The guards whispered among themselves, shrugged, and stepped forward, pulling Alucard and Yoko along, through a dark marble corridor and into a smaller chamber, its walls lined with far more modest bookshelves and large, wall-height mirrors set between them, reflecting the room—and each other—a thousandfold. In the center of the room was a chair, a table, and a girl, reflected in the mirrors ad infinitum.

She was a young Japanese girl, seventeen years old, with hair the color of saffron tied back with a red ribbon. The girl wore the red and white robes of a shrine maiden, and she sat at the table with a book, a full glass of water, a small glass pepper shaker, and a plate of untouched food. She seemed to be completely absorbed in her book.

The guards approached her, and only once they came within a foot of her did she look up and catch sight of Yoko and Alucard. She leaped to her feet. “Miss Yoko!”

There she was: The hostage, a young girl who might as well have been the younger sister Yoko never had. Mina Hakuba, apprentice priestess to the shrine where Dracula’s eldritch home of Castlevania had been sealed away a generation ago.

Alucard put a finger to his throat. _“_ _We’ve found Mina_ _,”_ he whispered. _“_ _She’s in the library.”_

–

Doctor Alphys dutifully passed Alucard’s message on to everybody else.

_The library._ Soma wondered if he and King Asriel were closer to Mina now than they were to Chara. “Your Highness, maybe we should go after Mina first. I mean, that’s why we’re here, isn’t it? And this whole thing’s so fishy, Alucard and Miss Belnades are probably walking straight into a pit of piranhas or something.”

Asriel turned his head and gave him a look that said a thousand words, and those thousand words seemed to be “shut up” repeated five hundred times.

“Uh, far be it from me to dictate policy, but with all due respect, _she_ is our mission, not your crazy cousin or whatever who just barged in here like an idiot because they felt like it.”

“You mean like _you_ did?”

Whoa. Soma had touched a nerve.

“I know. But Alucard is strong and exceptionally skilled, Soma. He’s more than capable of looking after your friend,” Asriel answered. “Chara does not have the benefit of an Alucard to keep them safe.”

“Well,” Soma retorted testily, “Mina’s my friend, and if I don’t turn up for her, she probably _won’t_ be much longer, even if she lives through this house of horrors. You can’t just _not_ be there for your friend and expect them to—”

And then Soma listened to what he’d just said. “Oh,” he finished.

Asriel let out a deep sigh as he leaned against a bullet-pockmarked wall. “I don’t like this either, Soma. It’s all gone wrong. None of us were supposed to split up like this.”

“We can afford to split up. I’ll head for the library, you try to find—”

Asriel cut him off. “We aren’t splitting up. I don’t want anyone else wandering this castle alone.”

_This walking livestock has no right to order_ me _around,_ part of Soma fumed with a venom that took even him by surprise.

Unfortunately, though, Asriel wasn’t the only thing to cut Soma off, because at that moment, the floor heaved, and the same giant crab from earlier burst out from under Soma’s feet, its serrated beak-claws tearing through the stone floor and hungrily gulping down the stone debris. It straddled the hole it made in the floor, Soma standing on one side of it, Asriel on the other, brackish water cascading down its shining blue-green back as it roared in anger.

“ _Soma! Catch!”_ Asriel tossed a spear into the air over the crab’s carapace, and Soma reached out and caught it. The crab swung its claw in an arc, creating a deep gouge in the ceiling and loosing a shower of debris behind it before it bore down on Soma.

Soma backed away, holding the flaming partisan out as far as he could. The crab drew its claw back, its secondary mouth closed, and threw a punch with a speed Soma could barely comprehend.

The sound of the claw hitting the floor was like the sonic boom from a supersonic jet, all-consuming in its loudness. The pressure wave alone—the claw had touched down yards away from Soma—knocked him off his feet and threw him backward, and Soma hit the floor hard. He felt like a stone that had been skipped.

The crab continued for him—obviously it recognized Soma very well—even as blossoms of fire lit up behind its back and wreathed its shiny shell in flames. Behind the crab, the ceiling continued to collapse, building a larger pile of rubble where Asriel had been, and the barrage abruptly ceased. Fortunately, the king wasn’t buried under the debris—Soma’s borrowed weapon hadn’t dissolved yet. But whatever fate he’d met, he’d be no help against this crab anymore. It was all up to Soma.

With another titanic punch, the crab shattered the floor, sending chunks of stone plummeting into the mighty currents of a river below the corridor, the debris vanishing into the frothy maelstrom. The crab’s legs straddled the two walls and it scuttled ahead, straddling the hallway.

Soma scurried backward as quickly as he could as the floor fell away at his feet, his back aching; the crab quickly caught up with him and drove its pincers into the floor, one claw to his left, one claw to his right. Above him, the crab’s severed secondary tongue lashed out, dripping rank-smelling blue blood from its ragged stump, and the grotesque, sphincter-like throat pulsed and quivered.

Getting eaten by a crab anus was not Soma’s preferred method of dying. Although he’d never thought much about dying until the past few days or so. It had always been something that happened to _other_ people.

As the beak began to draw closed, driving furrows in the stone floor as it scooped it up, Soma curled up, pulling his legs up to his chest before the serrated teeth drawing closer sliced them off altogether. And then he was encased in darkness—a humid, sticky darkness that smelled like nothing he’d ever smelled before. His only source of light was Asriel’s partisan, still shining with a pure golden light.

And then it went out; the partisan vanished in a shower of sparks. That wasn’t a good sign: either King Asriel was out of range, unconscious, or dead.

Whatever had happened, Soma was on his own. He conjured up a javelin of his own and took matters into his own hands.

The stumpy tongue felt around him, wrapped around his waist, and started to pull him up. The entire inside of the beak spun and whirled and Soma felt himself violently reoriented so that the claw-mouth’s throat was beneath him now; the crab must have started to move. Was the crab taking him back to its nest? (Did crabs have nests?) Was he a meal-to-go or a quick bite for the road?

Soma slashed at the crab’s gullet, cutting its pulsing muscles to ribbons. The whole claw quivered and vomited Soma out, throwing him across scenery that flew by far too quickly for it to be even the slightest bit recognizable.

The crab drew back its uninjured claw and aimed to throw another explosive punch at Soma; Soma picked himself up and threw himself under the crab, spying its soft, fleshy—and injured—underbelly. He lashed out, driving the spear into the unprotected crab meat, raking the blade across the creature’s belly and leaving gushes of odious and acrid fluids in its wake. The beast convulsed, reared up on its hind legs, and toppled over onto its back, legs splayed out, claws askew. It wriggled and thrashed one last time before divulging a glowing orb of scarlet light, which sank into Soma’s chest and revitalized him.

He climbed atop the Cerberus crab and was just about to give it one last stab for good measure when a burst of static squealed in Soma’s ear, followed by the king’s voice. _“Soma! Are you all right? I’m so sorry…”_ Asriel asked, his voice urgent nearly to the point of panic.

This guy might have been a king of a mountain full of lizards and skeletons and fishpeople, but he apologized about as much as a Canadian. “Yeah, I’m fine. Crab tried to eat me with its asshole, but I didn’t taste very good.”

“ _Um—excuse me?”_

“Never mind. How about you?”

“ _I’m fine. A little bruised, but that’s it.”_

“I lost your spear.”

“ _Not surprised. I’ve fallen into some sort of reservoir. Current swept me a long way downstream before I could grab hold of something. Where’ve you ended up?”_

Soma looked around. The corridors where the crab had deposited him looked less like a dungeon and more like the hallways in a once-fancy hotel that had been abandoned for decades. Stained and moldy salmon-colored wallpaper peeled off the walls and half-lit chandeliers dangled from the ceiling. “Looks like the Overlook Hotel to me.”

“ _Well, that’s just great. I’m guessing we’re too far apart to go looking for each other, so why don’t we both try for the front gate and meet up there?”_

“Roger that.”

As the line went dead, Soma took another cursory look around and wondered if the library was close by.

–

Chara’s venture into the dance hall wasn’t going so well. The guards had been wrong—there was no way into the throne room from here. Not only that, but they were lost, and what’s more, they were face to face with dozens of monsters. Normally, that wouldn’t have worried them in the slightest. After all, some of their best friends were monsters—no, _all_ of their best friends were monsters.

But _the_ _se_ monsters were very large, and quite mean-looking, and they _did_ have nasty weapons. And _that_ , not the fact of their species, was what made Chara slightly worried.

The ax-wielding minotaur loomed over them with feral red eyes, steam puffing from its massive nostrils and assaulting Chara with a truly offensive odor. Behind the minotaur stood/floated/staggered phantasmal dancers, crooked little flea men, skeletal knights and soldiers with rotting flesh and swords half the width of their bodies, wolfmen and wolfwomen, and young succubus chambermaids with flawless skin and spotless uniforms and slitted eyes with eyelids that closed vertically instead of horizontally.

Chara had decided to talk their way out.

“In fact,” said Chara, trying very hard to salvage the situation they’d found themselves in, “I was once King of the Monsters.”

“You don’t look like a king to me,” the minotaur snarled.

“Well, there aren’t any gender-neutral words for ‘king’ and ‘queen,’” Chara retorted. “Blame the English language, not me.”

“Mount Ebott isn’t any kingdom I’ve ever heard of,” a succubus pointed out.

“It’s a little after your time. We were pretty underground until about fifteen years ago.”

One of the skeleton men laughed loudly, then fell silent as his peers glared at him.

“How were _you_ king of the monsters?” one of the wolfmen asked. He had a few ragged strips of a soldier’s uniform hanging from between his teeth and a very bloody hole in his shoulder.

“You smell like a human,” the minotaur growled, its hooves cracking the ornately tiled floor of the ballroom.

“And with enough perfume,” said Chara, “you’d all smell like roses and daisies. Look, friends,” they continued, backing into a chair and nearly falling over, only a little nervous, “Trust me. I’m no friend to the humans downstairs who are doing all the shooting. I hate guns, and I hate soldiers even more.”

One of the skeleton knights cleared his non-existent throat, while a dripping zombie lieutenant in a British WWI-era uniform moaned disapprovingly.

“Human soldiers, _human_ soldiers. My prerogative is _you_ guys. I’m here to help!”

“And how,” a scaly lizard-man hissed, “do you intend to help?”

Chara took a seat on the chair they’d nearly fallen over and crossed one leg over the other, smiling their winningest and most charming smile, feeling for the first time truly at home within this cold and uncaring universe. “Well, for starters, my friends, I don’t think any of you know what you’re worth. All of you—you’re working for _who? Dracula?_ Where is he now, again?” Chara pulled a face. “Oh. That’s right. Dead.”

The legion of wolfmen bristled. “Dracula is reincarnated!” one shouted out. “Even now he walks the castle in his new body—as the prophecy foretold!” The rest of the monsters cheered in agreement.

“Does he now?” Chara cocked their head and put a hand to their cheek. “And when the new Dracula, whoever it is, takes their place on their throne, which I imagine must be covered in skulls and spines or something, will they pay you for your services in their long absence?”

The monsters murmured among themselves. The minotaur slowly lowered its battleaxe.

“No back pay? Hmm. And no vacations either, I assume. Healthcare? Dental? Maternity leave? _Paternity_ leave? Gender-neutral new parent leave?”

The monsters continued to shift uncomfortably.

“How are your 401ks?” Chara continued. There was no reaction from the crowd. “Wait—hold on. Did Dracula pay you _at all?”_

Dead silence. Finally, a tiny flea man who barely came up to Chara’s knee piped up. “Uh… no?”

“ _The bourgeois pig!”_ Chara spat under their breath.

A chorus of agreement swept through the crowd of monsters, which had begun to grow. A few snaky bone dragons had curled up in the opulent ballroom.

One of the zombie generals raised a sword so massive it looked like it belonged in a video game. “We desire no pay but the souls of innocents!” A few other monsters cheered in enthusiastic agreement.

“The souls of the innocent? The _souls_ of the _innocent?_ Why, that’s priceless!” Chara laughed. “Literally! Can the souls of the innocent pay your bills? Can they buy you food? Does a landlord accept a check from the First National Bank of Souls? Can you invest with souls, raise a family with souls, take vacations with souls?”

Chara flung out their arms. “Look at this place! I could knock over any given lamp post and money would start pouring out of the wall! Did you really think that all these past centuries, Dracula couldn’t _pay_ you?”

Chara gestured to the gathering monsters. The more they talked, the more steam they gathered, the more comfortable they felt. It was all coming back to them—their confidence, their convictions, their every last bit of oratory power they thought had long since atrophied. “Look at you—putting your lives on the line! And for what? A master who thinks you’re all worthless!”

Chara pointed toward the skeleton and zombie members of the crowd. “Except for you guys—you’re putting your _un_ lives on the line. And in some ways that might even be braver!”

A few cheers came up from the undead demographic.

“Let’s face it, my friends. This is a high-risk career path. Mortality rates are through the roof. There’s always some bloodthirsty malcontent with a quote-unquote ‘beef’ against your employer and who deals with it? _Y_ _ou!_ And are you rewarded? _No!_ You need _proper_ benefits. You need _respect!_ You only do the best you can when your boss treats you with dignity and respect—and that means you get paid with _real_ _money!”_

Cheers. Claps. Applause. Chara took it all in, beaming from ear to ear. They were winning. _Winning._ God, what a stump speech! “So, listen up, you—and I mean this in the most affectionate way—misfits and miscreants, when the new Dracula comes to town, you’re going to march up to him—or her, or them—and _what are you going to say to them?”_

“We want back pay!” shouted a wolfwoman.

“And salaried wages!” cried a flea man.

“And paid time off!” cheered a succubus (im)modestly draped in scarlet leathery wings.

“ _And if you don’t get these things?”_ Chara roared.

The cheering stopped abruptly, and Chara nearly put their hand through their face. These monsters needed their hands held with _everything_.

–

The two guards flanked Mina and marched her across the room to Alucard and Yoko. “I believe this one is yours,” the one on the right said.

“I hope you’ll reconsider taking her,” said the one on the left.

“We could use a little ray of sunshine like her around here,” the one on the right added.

Mina bounded straight toward Yoko and wrapped her arms around her waist. Knowing that Mina was safe lifted a massive weight from Yoko’s conscience. “Thank goodness you’re safe, Mina!” Yoko gave her a hug. “These men haven’t hurt you, have they?”

“Hurt me?” Mina glanced at the two guards. “Oh, no, Miss Yoko, they brought me here to keep me _safe._ I am fine!”

That sounded fishy to Yoko and Alucard alike. “What?”

Noting the bemused looks on Yoko and Alucard’s faces, Mina explained herself. “After the men from the shrine took me away, _these_ soldiers set me free and brought me here for safekeeping.” Mina smiled. “And now you two are here to take me home, right?”

It was times like this that Yoko remembered just how sheltered (and consequently, gullible) Mina was. Most of her real-world experiences came from history books, documentaries, and Soma’s inexplicable and bottomless knowledge of really old pop culture.

“Yes,” Yoko answered, choosing to spare Mina the knowledge that everything these men had told her was likely wrong.

Alucard peered down at the girl. “Are you the real Mina Hakuba?”

“Oh, she’s real, all right,” said the guard on her right. “A real model prisoner, her. Can we please keep her?”

Alucard turned to face the guard, but only for a second. “Shut up,” he told him.

Yoko would rather not subject a just-rescued hostage to a litmus test to prove her identity, but she grudgingly accepted that Alucard had a point. She pondered for a moment, trying to think of the perfect question. She and Alucard had visited the Hakuba Shrine frequently over the past few years, and she liked to think she knew Mina quite well…

“Mina,” she asked sweetly, “the last time we visited the shrine, what happened?”

“Oh, er…” Mina thought about the question and suppressed a snicker. “I don't mean to laugh, but when I was teaching the two of you about rice offerings Mr. Arikado—”

The guards snickered, expecting an embarrassing story. Alucard held up his hand. “That is quite enough. You are most certainly the real Mina Hakuba. Thank you for cooperating.”

Alucard and company returned through the maze of bookshelves, the black depths of the library below the thin balcony littered with the lights of small torches in the darkness. The guards marched behind them.

“I doubt we need an escort back,” said Alucard. “For one such as myself, navigating this castle is second nature…”

“Sorry. Boss’s orders.”

Mina stopped in her tracks. [My parents!] She took Alucard by the arm. [Mr. Arikado, I’ve been gone all day—]

“Your parents know where you are,” Alucard responded. “I have informed them of the situation, and they trust Ms. Belnades and me to take care of you.”

Mina breathed a sigh of relief. [What about Soma?]

[You will see him sooner than you think.] And with that, Alucard continued onward.

If this was indeed a trap, it seemed to Yoko they were taking their sweet time springing it. Perhaps _that_ was part of the trap. She could see Alucard glancing backward every few seconds at the armed guards at their back, a hard look in his eye suggesting to Yoko he was pondering when the best time to kill them and run for it would be.

When the guard behind Yoko jabbed the barrel of his rifle into her back and kicked her legs out from under her, throwing her away from the shelves and toward the three-story drop to the bottom of the library, it was the exact moment Alucard had turned away. Yoko felt her feet leave the solid wooden walkway and saw the dim chamber lurch and spin around her, the wind tearing the air from her lungs.

She was still holding onto something. No, some _one._ Mina—Mina was falling with her! She couldn’t let go of her now—the girl wouldn’t survive the drop on her own, unless she were just as resourceful and twice as lucky as her friend Soma had been. Yoko reached out with her free hand, found a bookshelf and scrabbled for it, but her fingernails tore through the soft and maggot-eaten wood, collapsing the shelf and causing its inhabitants to cascade to the floor and flutter through the air like so many birds.

Yoko fell farther down. No parachute, no net, nothing to grab at or fall onto to slow her descent. The wind whipping at her hair, she thrust out her arm at the floor beneath her and, curling inward her ring finger, conjured a burst of wind. The force of the miniature cyclone localized to her palm as it touched down on the floor slowed her descent, slower, slower, and as the floor rose to meet her, the winds faltered and failed, dropping herself and Mina only a few feet from the ground.

Still, Yoko’s outstretched hand hit the floor ahead of the rest of her, the heel of her palm slamming against the cold marble. There was an audible, sickeningly organic snap, and a jolt of white-hot pain shot through her wrist. A pile of books joined her on the floor, flopping over on the marble tiles, their spines broken and bent. They scattered loose pages across the floor, barely illuminated by the sparsely-planted lanterns lighting the deeper parts of the library.

–

Above them, Alucard wrestled with the guards who’d sprung their trap around him, snapping the first one’s neck with ease and tearing the gun from his hands. With the gun in his hands, he fired wildly into the air, raining down shards of marble and plaster, and dislodging the sword he’d embedded in the ceiling earlier from its impromptu sheath.

Alucard caught the sword as it fell and thrust it forward with inhuman speed, running the second guard through. He wrenched the sword upward and cleaved him up the middle one-handed, using the stock of the now-spent rifle to push the guard into the abyss.

The coast was clear—for now. But if they’d waited until now to spring the trap, they must have had a good reason for it.

Casting a glance around the expansive library and seeing nothing, Alucard knelt at the edge of the walkway and stared down into the abyss. The lowest level was nearly pitch-black, but his keen eyes could make out two people who seemed to be moving, which was a good sign. He didn’t know what he’d have done if he’d found any serious harm had come to Yoko or Mina. _“_ _Miss Belnades_ _!”_ he called out to her. _“Are you hurt?”_

–

Yoko gritted her teeth and she probed her already-swelling wrist with her fingers, even the lightest touch sending fresh waves of pain through her arm. Her wrist was broken, but she’d live—unless one of the castle’s denizens marked her for easy prey.

[Mina,] she breathed, [are you all right?]

Her cherubic face lit ghoulishly by the flickering candlelight, Mina nodded. [How—Miss Yoko, how did you do that?]

[I’m a witch.] She inhaled sharply, though it did nothing to dull the pain in her arm. “Alucard!” Yoko called out. “We’re all right down here!”

[Y-you’re a _witch?_ _]_

[Yes, Mina.]

[An _actual_ witch?]

[Yes. I was in Hufflepuff. Come on, let’s find our way back up.]

“ _Stay where you are!”_ Alucard shouted from four stories above. _“I’m coming for—”_

His voice was cut short.

“ _Alucard!”_ Yoko shouted.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Mission... accomplished?


	16. King Solomon's Judgment

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Alucard meets the mastermind behind this operation.

The castle was a labyrinth through and through, its corridors twisting and turning, with halls leading nowhere, staircases that ran straight up into walls, doors that opened up to bricked-up doorways, and tiny little hideaways and crawlspaces haphazardly strewn across the architecture.

_This castle has to be self-creating,_ Soma thought  as he  opened a door and found himself facing a sheer rock wall flush against the doorframe ,  _because there’s not a single person on God’s green Earth who’d design a building like this._

And then Soma remembered the Winchester house, a mansion built (and constantly rebuilt) at the whims of Sarah Winchester, the widow of firearms magnate William Winchester, who feared she was haunted by the ghosts of all who had been killed by Winchester rifles. Staircases leading nowhere, fake doors…

Well, for sure _this_ castle was haunted.

Unfortunately, Soma quickly found himself wandering the castle after getting separated from the others, with no idea where he was or how to get back to familiar territory.

The part of the castle he’d found himself in now had posh furniture and wide, clear windows with wrought-iron frames. Clouds condensed against the windowpanes, soaking them; green foliage crowded the windowsills. There were few soldiers here, and more hostile creatures. In long, mirror-lined corridors, doll-like maids who almost seemed human but had black and murky eyes like sharks’ politely curtsied as Soma walked past, but tried to spin-kick him the instant he turned his back; the mirrors seemed to pick up his movements just a half-second later than they should have, and Soma could occasionally see something out of the corner of his eye flitting through the out-of-sync world reflected in those mirrored panes.

Even in the parts of the castle that weren’t creepy, or crumbling, or covered in dust and cobwebs that were a bit too big and too sticky, there was always something unnerving just out of sight.

Soma Cruz pushed onward, staying well out of sight of the soldiers with the help of Alphys’ fantastic CuttleCamo cloak and taking the souls from creatures he met around the way. Most of the monsters he met were, like the giant crab, very hostile toward just about anything that moved. He didn’t feel too bad about killing them—and besides, the feeling when their souls tore from their collapsing bodies and sank into his heart was euphoric… simply indescribable. It was like a shot of adrenaline directly into his heart. Wounds disappeared, cuts and scrapes and bruises faded away, aching limbs and joints were completely refreshed. And that wasn’t even getting into the powers they granted him.

“ _Hey!”_

Soma whirled around, trying to pinpoint the source of the urgent whisper.

“ _Hey, you there! With the blue coat!”_

Blue coat. So his invisibility had run out again. Soma pulled off the CuttleCamo cloak and folded it under his arm. If it were a hostile soldier calling out to him, he’d probably have been shot by now.

He noticed a crack in the wall, eyes peering from it, fingertips poking over the edge.  _“Hey, kid. You need a sword?”_

Soma hefted the one he’d been carrying, dragged off of some animated suit of armor from the grand hallway. The blade had broken away at the hilt like Narsil from _The Lord of the Rings_ , leaving a jagged splinter. “Who wants to know?”

The man in the wall’s fingers wiggled and pointed left, in the direction of a door. _“Just a humble small business owner trying to get by. Go in through there.”_

Soma opened the door—it creaked like any door in a haunted house should—and walked into the man in the wall’s shop.

He was a big man. Tall—easily six and a half feet—and muscular, his skin a tawny taupe and his head as bald and shiny as a billiard ball. He wore the same battered and stained uniform as the rest of the soldiers working under Solomon and his men, and at his feet were boxes and boxes of bric-a-brac, from piles of military surplus gear to pillaged weapons and armor and trinkets from the castle. Swords and spears stood up like stashed umbrellas.

“Welcome to Hammer’s General Emporium and Military Surplus,” the man in the wall said, offering a hand to Soma. “I’m Hammer, in case you couldn’t tell.”

Soma kept the broken blade close, just in case Hammer turned on him. “You’re not with the rest of the soldiers?”

Hammer shrugged. “I was. Then a giant spider with a lady coming out of its neck like a centaur ate all my squad. Figured maybe God was telling me to start on a new career path right about then. Dunno what’s going on in this madhouse, but as far as I’m concerned, I’m Switzerland.” He offered Soma his hand. “Gotta say, you’re the first halfway-normal person I’ve seen in here. And you are…?”

“Soma Cruz.” Soma shook Hammer’s hand. “Nice to meet you, Switzerland.”

“As you can probably tell…” Hammer gestured to his wares. “I used to be with the Army. _Real_ army, capital-A. Combat medic. Transferred over to Green Dolphin when the PMCs gobbled up the public sector halfway through my second tour in Afghanistan—contract bullshit. Honestly, though mercenary life never sat right with me.”

“Huh.” Soma examined a carton full of capes and cloaks. “You know, I hate getting roped into things too.”

“It takes all the _glory_ out of service. Know what I mean? It’s not like it’s any less ugly, but forget loyalty to a country or faith in a cause or any of that old-timey shit. Everyone in here is fighting for their boss’s paycheck and their own, nothing more. So instead of fighting the good fight to keep the American Dream alive, you’re fighting on the whims of some kook with dollar signs for eyes.” Hammer gestured to the crumbling castle walls. “You know our client here calls himself ‘King Solomon?’ What a _weirdo!”_

Soma felt a little annoyed Hammer had decided to appoint him his therapist, but at least the guy wasn’t pointing a gun at him. “Wonder how much that Solomon guy paid to have you guys come here.”

“Not enough, kid. Not enough. But I’ve rambled on too long. I’m done with fighting, and now I’m just trying to get my business off the ground. _That’s_ the American Dream. So, see anything you like?”

Soma ran his fingers across the hilt of a gleaming hand-and-a-half sword.

“I’ve also got some ointments, poultices, other crap in case you get hurt—Oh, hey, nice pick. Like it? That’s $649.99.” Hammer smiled. “And just your luck, I don’t think there’s any sales tax in Dracula’s castle.”

In this castle, gold was everywhere—bags of coins stashed in the walls, treasure chests secreted away in dead-ends and hidden rooms, pouring out of broken chandeliers and holes in the ceiling. Soma had just a small pack of coins jangling off his belt and already felt rich enough to buy a full ride to any Ivy League university he liked… let alone any of Hammer’s wares. He wondered if this were Dracula’s castle, or Scrooge McDuck’s.

“If you need money, why not just _take_ it? There’s tons of it just lying around.” Soma untied his bag from his belt loop and jingled it in front of Hammer. “I just knocked over a vase back there and got all this.”

“Why, Soma, _that_ would be stealing.” Hammer looked scandalized.

“But you stole all these swords, didn’t you?”

“ _That’s_ finders keepers. That’s different.”

“And yet you’ll take my dirty money.”

Hammer threw up his hands. “Look, it just feels weird to me, okay? You gonna buy something, or just ogle the merchandise?”

“So, in other words, this is a money laundering operation.” Soma picked up a strange sword with a segmented blade. The segments came apart along the sword’s spine with a flick of a button on the hilt, linked by a sturdy spinal cable. Sort of a whip-sword.

“That one’s $799.99.”

Soma nearly dropped it. “Eight hundred bucks? For this piece of junk?”

“Look, Soma, I’m not gonna haggle over my wares. But you just give me what you’ve got and throw in that coat and we’ll call it even.”

“In your dreams. This thing’s a prototype. Not my intellectual property, and even if it were, it’s worth more than anything in _ye olde shoppe.”_ Soma tugged the CuttleCamo closer.

“What? No, I meant your _other_ coat. The one with the fur.”

“This old thing?” Soma tugged at the lapels of his white trench coat. “It’s way too small for you.”

Hammer shrugged his incredibly broad shoulders. “My niece might like it. Looks pretty designer.”

“Really? Got it at a thrift store for ten bucks. Besides, it’s my _look.”_

Hammer laughed. “All right. You hand over the gold you’ve got now and I’ll consider it a down payment on the sword.”

“Deal.” Soma handed over the bag of gold and took the whip-sword from Hammer’s umbrella stand. “By the way, you wouldn’t happen to know how to get down to the library, would you? I’ve got a friend to meet down there.”

Hammer crouched down and rifled through the box of camo fatigues nestled between the armors and weapons. “Since this is your first time here, I’ll throw in this map I found of the castle, absolutely free.” He pulled out a grimy piece of parchment and jabbed his finger at a spot just a little above and to the right of the center. “I think we’re here.”

“Thanks!” Soma studied the map. It looked like there was a way from here to the library through the hanging gardens just up ahead. At long last, a lead.

“So, what’s in the library?” Hammer asked. “Rare books? You’ve got that sort of archaeologist librarian look about you. Like a hipster Indiana Jones.”

“My friend’s down there. I’m getting her out.”

“ _Her?”_ Hammer looked down to the weapon Soma had just bought. “You know, forget the down payment thing. Sword’s yours. No loan, no interest.”

“Special discount for knights in shining armor?” Soma liked this guy. “Pleasure doing business with you, Hammer.”

“Pleasure’s mutual. Thank you, come again!”

–

Something whizzed past Alucard’s ear, nicking it and embedding itself in the bookshelf on the other side of the chasm. The second part of the trap: a sniper. He whirled around and scanned the area, looking for the sniper’s position—some far-off bookshelf, a balcony, somewhere in the rafters, perhaps?

A shot rang out, echoing across the library, and flecks of shattered and splintered wood flew up into the air just inches away from Alucard’s toe. He froze, looked up, and saw, on the level above him, men with guns. Lots of them. They wore gray fatigues and body armor and covered their faces with black masks, just like the soldiers he and Yoko had passed on their way here. Behind the soldiers were two other people: a man in a red coat—King Crimson—and a woman wielding a long black-gunmetal rifle.

A man with a long black coat stepped up from behind the soldiers. He was tall, thin, and knobbly, with close-cropped ginger hair and angular oil-slick sunglasses. At his side, he carried a coiled bullwhip.  _“Genya Arikado!”_ he shouted out, staring down at the half-vampire with contempt. 

Alucard stared up at him, bemused.  He  _recognized_ the man. This was Solomon Graves—the Agency operative typically tasked with waking Alucard up from his slumber.  The one who’d spearheaded the operation at the Hakuba Shrine.

“Or, is it Alexander Lecarde?” Solomon asked. “Or Aloysius Deckard? Or my favorite—Adrian Fahrenheit Tepes, son of Vlad Tepes Dracula?”

“‘ _Alucard,’”_ Alucard corrected, hissing through gritted teeth.

“At long last…” The leader of the troops took the whip from his side, spreading his arms and holding a length of the whip taut in his hands. “How kind of you to join us!”

Alucard’s eyes darted from the man, to his goons, to the whip in his hands,  the women in need of rescue below driven from his mind  as the sight of the artfully-crafted weapon ran through his mind .

_It couldn’t be._

He’d seen that whip many times before in his life, wielded by many a man, and he had last seen it in the hands of the man who had struck Dracula down for good nearly thirty-six years ago.

The Vampire Killer:  the ancient  ancestral weapon of the Belmont clan.  T he  holiest and most potent weapon for slaying the forces of darkness ever forged since  the  Excalibur  or the Claimh Solais  or the Sword of Goujian .

T ruth be told, the name was a  _little_ boring, but the Belmont family line had never been known for its creativity.

“ _That’s right_ _, my pasty friend!”_ The man on the  higher catwalk clenched his fist. He had an accent so British that his voice alone could colonize its own continent. _“_ _You knew me as_ _Solomon Graves…_ _but look! I am the inheritor of a holy lineage—_ _Solomon Graves_ _Belmont_ _!”_

A Belmont—a member of the legendary clan which had fought Dracula for generations— a part of  _Julius’s_ family . It couldn’t be possible.  _“No!”_ Alucard snarled, taking a step forward, but stopped in his tracks when  Solomon  Belmont’s soldiers trained their guns on the  depths of the library below.

“For centuries, my family has fought against the forces of darkness—the most illustrious and noble line of vampire hunters the world has ever known! But what becomes of this bloodline when Dracula is no more? What is the generation of Belmonts to follow in the wake of 1999 to do?”

Julius had asked him the same question once before. Alucard hadn’t had an answer—he hadn’t even known what _he_ would do with his life’s work completed. “Is _that_ what this is about?” Alucard called out, his bile growing by the second. _“Generational ennui?”_

Solomon Belmont chuckled and shook his head. “Something of that. You see, I’ve thought long and hard about it, and I’ve realized that the work my family started will never truly end.” He raised a fist. “For Dracula bore an heir, and it is my duty to extinguish him—and claim my vengeance!”

“Vengeance? Against _me_ _?”_

Solomon cracked the whip, sending a thunderclap through the air and cleaving a long gash through a  green  marble pillar. “ A gainst the man who left my father here to die thirty- six years ago.”

Alucard’s already-pale face turned ashen  as he recollected his sins .

With Dracula’s castle crumbling around them and fading away, brick-by-brick, as the eclipse swallowed it up, Julius had lagged behind Alucard on the way out, stopping to lay down his ancestral whip in the throne room where it could complete a holy seal and prevent Dracula from ever taking corporeal form again. Unlike Alucard, Julius had never made it out of the castle.

Alucard had hoped that, due to time dilation, only a matter of days, weeks at most—if any time at all—would have passed in the thirty-six years between the castle’s subsequent appearance, and Julius would have been no worse for the wear when Alucard returned. But he’d been wrong about that, and if that whip were now in the hands of a new master, then…

It was all for naught—he may as well have stayed home.

“I didn’t leave him to die. He stayed behind. I waited for him…”

Solomon held the whip aloft yet again, deaf to Alucard’s explanations. “When I came to this castle, I pulled the legendary Vampire Killer, the ancestral weapon of my bloodline, off the emaciated corpse of my own father, the late, great Julius Belmont!” Visible spittle flew from his mouth. “A man I never knew because of _you,_ Alucard! His spirit cries out for retribution!”

“ _No!”_ The chords of Alucard’s neck strained like taut iron cables. A rage he hadn’t felt in years overcame him. _“You are no son of Belmont!_ _And he could not have—_ _”_

“Died?” Solomon motioned to King Crimson, and the red-coated man departed, returning just a second later carrying in his arms a battered pile of bones wrapped in a grimy brown coat Alucard recognized just as well as he’d recognized the whip.

With a laugh, King Crimson threw the bundle at Alucard’s feet. A jawless skull poked out from the coat. “Look upon him, Alucard! Do you know this poor Yorick?”

Alucard recoiled from the pile of human remains, his cool blood running even colder in his veins. He’d feared this possibility ever since he’d found out the castle had not been sealed in stasis. He didn’t want to believe it—it couldn’t be so. “This… this is all a trick.”

“Oh, is it? Would you like me to prove myself?” Solomon motioned for his men to lower their weapons. “Come, then. Your sword. My whip. See whose blood runs in my veins!”

Alucard pulled his new sword, Stardust Omen, from its sheath. The blade crackled with blue electricity, drawing energy from the charged atmosphere filling the castle. With a single bound, Alucard covered the distance between himself and Solomon, landing crouched on the oaken platform above, blade held high.

Closer to Solomon, Alucard could see that the man looked noticeably different than he’d looked on video last night. The lines on his face were just a bit deeper, the gray in his hair just a little higher on his hairline. They were subtle changes—but when one’s own face never showed any signs of aging, one picked up on it in other peoples’ faces much more quickly.

The gray-suited troops closest to Alucard slumped over, blood spraying from perfectly-straight, paper cut-thin wounds across their chests and throats. Despite being several feet out of reach of the blade, Solomon reached to his nose and found a thin, shallow cut running across it, oozing bright blood.

Solomon’s lieutenants made to lunge at Alucard, but Solomon once again motioned for them to hang back. His body language, and Alucard’s, delivered a clear message: This was a test of strength first and foremost, not a fight to the death.

Solomon’s whip lashed out and Alucard narrowly dodged, the arc of the whip cutting only a lock of his hair as he pressed forward and swung his blade. Solomon ducked, and the Stardust Omen cleanly bit into a crumbling gargoyle statue jutting from the adjacent marble column, severing its head and hunched back and leaving a cut of stone so smooth it seemed to have been polished. The whip came back around, snapping Alucard on the shoulder and pulling an arc of blood and steam with it from where it had kissed his flesh.

From the first blood drawn and the burning, searing pain in his shoulder, Alucard could tell that he was dealing with a weapon specially anointed to deal with his kind. Solomon was telling the truth about that, at least. It was truly the Vampire Killer in his possession.

The next strike from the Stardust Omen cut through the hem of Solomon’s swirling black coat, cutting cleanly but unevenly and leaving the coat longer on one side than the other. The whip shot out again, and would have hit Alucard dead center had he not leaped backward, off the ledge and into the open air.

The tip of the whip curled around the blade of  the  Stardust Omen but found no purchase there, pulling blue sparks off the blade as it slid away.  Alucard landed safely on the  lower level balcony on the opposite side of the corridor , pausing just a moment to assess the shallow  yet smarting cut on his shoulder that had left his sleeve hanging by just a few threads.

“I believe I’ve made it clear,” Solomon said, “that I speak the truth. Admit your sins, Alucard, and let me absolve you of them—or press on, and die like our fathers.”

Alucard leaped into the air, sword drawn back and primed to strike, and Solomon’s whip lashed out lightning-fast like a venomous snake, with a crack like a shot from a gun. The whip cut across the half-vampire’s chest, cutting a long diagonal gash through his black-on-black suit ensemble. Even the carbon fiber body armor, so generously provided by Dr. Alphys, was rent asunder. The force of the impact knocked him back, swatting him to the floor.

Alucard pulled himself up, unsteady on his feet, his back aching. The livid wound cut across his torso by the lash of the Vampire Killer was deep and raw, exposing hints of white bone. Steam rose from the wound in curling tendrils, as if the whip had cooked the flesh it rent asunder. Alucard looked down at himself, his fingers ambling curiously across the gash in his chest as his sword clattered to his feet. While the wound was truly grisly, he felt no pain.

“Solomon Graves. You call _that_ a  holy weapon?” he called out. “I have had worse paper cuts.”

Without speaking a word, Solomon coiled the whip and clipped it to his belt, and his underlings climbed down to Alucard’s level.

Alucard knelt down to pick up the sword, fingers fumbling with the hilt as a wave of white-hot, agonizing pain caught up with him, swirling with the waves of emotions—fear, confusion, betrayal, self-loathing—lapping at his mind, threatening to pour over his impeccably-maintained stoic demeanor.

Something hit him in the neck. The sharp pain, like the sting of an insect, snapped him out of his reverie. A bullet—no, a dart—from the sniper’s gun. Alucard pulled it out, grabbed his sword in his left hand, stood up on unsteady feet and stumbled—

And forgot his sword.

He _had_ to have grabbed it with his left hand—he distinctly remembered doing so—but he didn’t have it.

Suddenly, somehow, King Crimson was right in front of Alucard and holding the sword. He wiggled it tauntingly, just out of reach, as Alucard reeled. How could he have just _grabbed_ it from Alucard without him noticing? Some sort of mind-altering drug in the dart?

He punched King Crimson in the nose, and the man staggered backward and fell down with blood spurting from his nostrils. The sniper, who’d left her perch, closed in and swung her rifle like a bludgeon _(Why not simply shoot me again?_ Alucard thought), but Alucard ducked, wrenched the rifle out of her hands, and rammed its stock into her stomach.

King Crimson nursed his bleeding nose, blood pooling in his cupped hands. He flung out his hands, spraying blood into the air; as the droplets splattered onto the balcony, black-masked Nazi officers rose from the stains, truncheons in hand.

“ _Blutritters, attack!”_

This was the same power that had created the red-suited men that had menaced Alucard and Yoko earlier, but Alucard soon found that these particular homunculi weren’t the same staggering zombies: they were far more dangerous.

They wrenched the pilfered rifle from Alucard’s grip, depriving him of his weapon; he grappled with the nearest homunculus and disoriented it enough with a punch to the face to tear the baton from its grasp. Alucard brained it with the truncheon with enough force to pulverize its skull, but the Blutritter was undeterred.

He found his left side immobilized, glanced behind his right shoulder, and found the others pinning him down. A phantom force struck him in the side—he hadn’t even seen it coming, or felt the wind from the blow, but it hurt all the same.

It seemed, likely due to the effects of the poison dart, that he was no longer able to perceive anything happening on his left, and these monsters were smart enough to exploit that weakness. Did these summoned creatures gain intelligence and strength the closer they were to their master?

Alucard wrenched himself free and swung the baton at the Blutritters, driving them back. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw King Crimson scamper away—with Alucard’s sword.

The Blutritters seized the moment, and Alucard felt his leg give out as one of the homunculi swung its baton at the crook of his knee. He raised his own baton just in time to block a swing that would have come down on his head.

He pulled himself forward, ignoring the electric pain shooting through his knee, and the homunculi followed. The one he’d hit in the head earlier was bleeding profusely, blood soaking through the black fabric mask.

_Blood._ Alucard  realized at the sight of the thick red liquid trickling down the creature’s pasty neck  how thirsty  he was .

The Blutritter attacked, and Alucard pinned its arms down to its sides, immobilized it, and drove his fangs into its neck. A hot flush filled his body as blood poured down his throat. These creatures were the worst thing to send out against a vampire or dhampyr such as himself: on the inside, they were all blood.

Alucard’s victim crumbled into dust  and he felt renewed power surge through him. He was invigorated— _alive_ in a way he hadn’t been in thirty-six years. The energy burning beneath his muscles made him feel as though he were about to tear himself out of this human shell he’d been saddled with for the past ten years—yes,  _yes,_ he could feel all of the power at his fingertips, the power he’d been denied for too long. He could feel the drug purged from his system. His vision snapped into focus.  At long last , he was seeing through his own eyes once more.

The homunculi charged—they were smart, yes, but still stupidly single-minded, and as they did, Alucard took the form of a cloud of mist. They blundered through, and Alucard reformed his body behind them. One noticed his reappearance and swung around to attack; Aucard thrust his fist into its belly and his arm came out the other side in a shower of gore. A second rushed him, and with one swipe of his hand Alucard cleaved its head from its neck, sending up a pressurized gout of blood that splattered against the library’s high ceiling.

Alucard could spot King Crimson running away with his sword in tow. He caught up with the red-cloaked man with ease, crossing the distance between the two of them with a snap of his fingers and leaving nothing but a faint afterimage standing where he had been a split second before. Alucard kicked King Crimson back and pried the Stardust Omen out of his grasp. There was fear in the man’s eyes behind his knocked-askew glasses.

“This was a gift from a friend,” Alucard chided him.

_Now,_ he thought,  _I could turn myself into a bat to glide into the depths of the library and, with my enhanced physicality, pull Miss Belnades and Miss Hakuba to safety—_

And then his high ran out, and Alucard suddenly found himself once again diminished. The feeling was as if his body were a half-deflated balloon. He needed more blood, more—

One of King Crimson’s Blutritters struck him against the temple and Alucard nearly lost consciousness, stars sparking across his field of vision. Within seconds they were upon him, striking at his knees, driving their clubs into his stomach, swinging them down on the crook of his elbow. He wrenched himself free of the mob, battered and bruised, then felt a noose fall upon his neck.

No, not a noose. The Vampire Killer. But it tightened like a noose, and Alucard gagged and kicked as the consecrated whip seared his flesh and starved his body of air, smelling his own flesh roasting as his halting breath sucked the curling tendrils of smoke through his nostrils. Solomon Belmont’s laughter cut through the haze of pain.

Alucard’s legs gave out, and he collapsed, his vision blurring as a sharp spike drove itself into his brain.

“ _You should have figured this was a hostage exchange, Alucard,”_ King Crimson laughed as the castle library swirled around Alucard.

He’d been confident all along that whatever kind of trap this had been—for he’d known from the start it had been one—he would have escaped it either through wits or brute force, just as he _always_ had. But he’d overestimated his abilities, trapped in this weak and fragile body as he was… and greatly underestimated his enemies.

Before he passed out, he hoped that Yoko and Mina could find their way out of danger without his help… and that somebody was still there to look after Soma.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> SNAKE!!! Did you like my SUNGLASSES???


	17. There's Something About Chara

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Asriel and Undyne have a long-overdue discussion that gets a little out of hand.

Undyne patrolled around the edge of the pool. “Around here, Asriel?” She’d been trying to figure out where he was for what had felt like hours in this stupid nightmare maze of a castle. This reservoir seemed like a likely spot, given how much he was complaining about the water. It was so wide, though, that she couldn’t even see the other side of the pool… although fortunately, the water was calm and still.

Asriel’s voice came through staticky and indistinct. Communication was getting harder the farther the two of them got from the front yard. Undyne hated to admit it, but her darling wife had more than a few kinks to work out in the quantum communicators’ design. _“Yeah, I can—Wave your arm! I think—see you.”_

Undyne waved her arm and a figure in the distance reciprocated and splashed closer. “That’s you, right?”

Asriel pulled himself up the edge of the reservoir, thoroughly soaked from the tips of his footpaws to the tips of his curled horns. What was left of the sleek, professional suit he’d been wearing clung to his body like a second skin, and rivulets of water trickled down his exposed fur. Undyne helped him up. “Pleasant swim, I take it?”

“You’d have liked it.” The king seemed not to have liked it much at all, as evidenced by a disposition that was possibly the furthest thing from sunny.

“Sorry I didn’t bring a towel.”

“Oh, no, it’s nothing, I’ll just let it air-dry,” Asriel replied, trying to wring water out of a shirt that now bore about two hundred percent its own weight in water before he could start toasting it dry. “Undyne, would you care to go after Soma and make sure he’s okay? I’ll take care of Chara.”

“No dice.” Undyne put her hand on her hip. “I’m not leaving your side. Part of the job.”

Undyne knew Asriel couldn’t argue with _that,_ and she knew that he knew it _._ “The kid’s only seventeen,” Asriel protested.

“And he’s a natural! You should’ve seen how quickly he picked up on swordfighting last night!” Undyne grinned. “He’s got almost as much natural talent as you, Asriel.”

Asriel sighed. “Yes,” he said. “That’s just what I’m afraid of.”

“I guess we could both go after him first, then double back and pick up Chara…”

“Absolutely not. Chara’s…” Asriel looked conflicted, torn between two people he believed were both vulnerable and at-risk, only one of which he could look after at one time. Undyne was well aware that this was a personal hell for Mr. I Can Do Everything Myself, King Asriel Dreemurr. “What happened to Chara, Undyne?”

Here it came. The topic she’d been dreading. “Well, you see…”

Asriel noticed the gash in her prosthetic. “Your arm. Are you hurt?”

“Oh, that—Asriel, listen to me, Chara and I got into a fight—”

“A fight? With whom? Soldiers? Skeletons? Crabs?”

“No, Chara and I were fighting—”

“ _Were they hurt?”_

It was no use trying to get through to him. Asriel could have a single-track mind sometimes. Well—most of the time. _All_ of the time. As a young teen that one track had been fighting, due to the whole Zero thing. In high school and college it had been studying. Then it was politics. Now it was Chara, or at least the _thing_ he thought was Chara.

Undyne lifted the barely-working hunk of metal hanging from her arm. “No. Asriel. Your Highness. Buddy. Listen to me. Chara did—”

A shot rang out across the water, gouging a hole near the king’s feet and kicking up a plume of dust.

–

“ _Chara, this is Asriel. Where are you?”_

Chara sighed. “Hold on, my friends—I have a call to take.” They stood up, left the growing semicircle of slavering beasts surrounding them, and stood in the corner. They touched their throat. “Azzy! Good to hear from you. Can you call back a bit later? I’m kind of in the middle of something right now.”

“ _So you’re okay?”_

“Oh, yes, okay, definitely. I got a little lost, but it’s all right. I’m having a ball right now, Asriel.” And it was _just_ the right place for it. Chara wondered if Dracula threw any parties, or if he just left this place to gather dust while he did… whatever it was Dracula did.

“ _You’re safe?”_

Chara looked around the ballroom. They were safe, all right. They had the monsters of the castle eating from the palm of their hand. They’d have their little democratic socialist republic set up by teatime, and well, if the gracious, freshly-liberated monster proletariat _wanted_ to put them into a leadership position when the revolution was over, who was Chara to turn down such an honor? “Safe as a chick in her nest, my caprine comrade, my billy goat brother—”

_(He isn’t your brother)_

Asriel sighed in relief. _“Oh, thank heavens. Undyne and I are pinned down in the aqueducts right now, but I’ll try to get to you. Where are you?”_

“The aqueducts, eh?” Chara furrowed their brow. “Uh, yeah, um, I think I passed through there a while back.” Though they didn’t have a map and didn’t know where the aqueducts were, they assumed the ballroom, occupying the floors above the main hall, was much higher up than the aqueducts.

Through the windows, Chara had an unobstructed view of the courtyard they’d come in on—but Asriel didn’t have to know that. “Just, uh, work your way down.” They almost felt bad about doing this, but this was a castle that could be theirs for the taking, and Chara had no intention of letting their baby brother _(He isn’t your brother)_ mollycoddle them out of it.

The urgency re-entered Asriel’s voice. _“Can you describe where you are?”_

“Um… uh…” Chara started huffing and panting. “A-Asriel, I’ve got to maintain radio silence. Things are getting a little spooky down here. I’ll work my way up and we’ll meet in the middle.”

A flea man tugged at Chara’s sleeve. “Um, excuse me, m’lordly,” he squeaked, “we’re having some trouble understanding this ‘striking’ you speak of—”

“ _Shh! Not now!”_ they hissed.

“ _Chara, what was that?”_

“Listen, Azzy, every word you speak puts me in more danger. Maintain radio silence. Chara out.” They took their finger off their throat, ending the call, and did an about-face. “So!” They clapped their hands together. “Let’s go over this again, from the top.”

“Wait!” A werewolf with cobalt-blue fur and a crimson mohawkish mane stood up. “I have a question!”

Chara suppressed the urge to roll their eyes. “If it’s about asserting a more democratic and free society and taking control of the means of production, I assure you, I will get to it—”

“No!” the beast snarled. “What’s the use of all this talk of ‘rights’ while human soldiers gun us down and the White Demon stalks us?”

“I have a question as well!” A half-nude incubus with long red hair trailing down to his ankles stood up and pointed a clawed finger right at Chara. “What is this nonsense? You come here, you _human,_ with your _human_ ideas, and expect us to turn on our masters and fawn over—”

“Excuse me,” Chara interrupted him. “Would you come closer, please? If you have a criticism, I would appreciate if you could tell me to my face.”

The incubus did come closer, stepping forward until his snakelike eyes were boring into Chara’s from only a few inches away. Chara was almost taken aback by the demon’s boldness.

“Don’t think that just because you have these _ideals_ means you can run in here and foment some insane rebellion—”

The monster suddenly began clawing at his throat as tendrils of steam began to leak from his mouth. He had stepped well within range of Chara’s ability, and now the Invisible Sun was baking his innards.

With a wave of their hand Chara turned up the heat. “My dear—oh, pardon me, I didn’t quite catch your name…?”

The incubus gurgled something as his windpipe began to char, his forked tail whipping behind him as his hooves slipped on the marble floor.

“I’m sorry, I don’t think I can pronounce that.” Chara snapped their fingers and the incubus fell to the floor. They looked down at the swirl of scarlet hair pooled around the pale, unblemished corpse.

“Don’t ever mistake me for human,” Chara told what had once been a dissenting voice in their soon-to-be new order. With that, they looked back up and gazed around the room at the rest of the monsters. “It will be the _last_ mistake any of you ever make.”

The monsters murmured approvingly among themselves, impressed by Chara’s show of force.

“Be wary!” they went on. “See how even those you consider friends and neighbors will turn on you the instant they hear talk of _liberty!_ The castle _wants_ you enslaved, but _I_ want you to be free! It is indeed a hard road I ask you to walk, but the reward is beyond your wildest dreams. If anybody here doubts if they have the strength to join me, then turn away now and show your neighbors the face of a craven coward.”

No other monsters stirred.

“Now, sir werewolf,” Chara continued, “I regret allowing you to be so rudely interrupted. What were you saying about a ‘white demon,’ my good man?”

The werewolf cleared his throat. “Yes, the man with silver hair who stalks us through the halls! Why bother discussing such trivial matters, such lofty affairs as ‘liberty,’ when we should be discussing how to _destroy_ him?”

“Silver hair, is it?” Chara took a deep breath. They _definitely_ knew someone who fit that description. “I… believe I can help you with that as well.”

–

The hanging gardens—all marble and glass—would have been beautiful under other circumstances. But not when Soma was being nearly petrified. Not with fear— _literally._

The cockatrice’s eye beam lanced out, sweeping across the floor and nearly missing Soma. The marble tiles beneath his boots underwent a metamorphosis, transforming from beautiful, periwinkle-veined white slabs to drab, common stone.

“ _Stupid cock!”_ he shouted out as he ran from the giant lizard-tailed rooster pursuing him. _“You just lowered the dollar value of this castle by like,_ _a thousand bucks_ _! Idiot!”_

He ducked behind a statue of a soldier throwing up his hands in terror. Well, at least _now_ he knew why the courtyard statues had been so macabre… and so poorly-arranged. As the cockatrice ran past, he struck with the whip-sword, cutting a long arc through its neck and completely severing its head. The head toppled to the ground, its eye no longer glaring balefully, and the body kept running, its flightless wings flopping at its side.

The beast’s soul sailed through the air and sank into Soma’s body. Would it let him turn him to stone? Or make him immune to petrification? He’d have to find out later.

He took a deep breath of the cool, crisp night air. Each part of the castle seemed to have its own weather, and the weather here was actually _beautiful._

A few petrified blades of grass crunched under Soma’s feet as he tried to get his bearings. He’d gotten all turned around in the chase, but using the statues as landmarks, he could keep track of which direction would take him to the library.

There. He’d come in next to the statue of the Roman centurion cowering in fear (how did a Roman end up in Dracula’s castle?), and that was now to his left, so he should be able to get to the library by—

He tripped over something and fell flat on his face. Oh, well. Even badass fighters had their stumbles. Soma got up—but his leg didn’t come with him. A thick, verdant vine had wrapped around his ankle.

Soma disentangled himself, cursing all the way. _Get it together, Soma, you’ve got a friend to save._

The vine started tangling up his fingers. And then his hands, wrists, and forearms.

_Oh. That’s nice._

He tried to pull himself free and got one arm out of the knotted mass, but the vines had the other one up to his shoulder. He picked up his sword and started weed whacking.

As he pulled free, the _rest_ of the plant breached the ground, spewing dark clods of earth as a thorny, emerald-green creature streaked blood-red (black in the deep midnight light) rose from the ground. Tall, thin, covered in scales and leaves and rose petals that wrapped around the body of what looked like a woman run through a taffy puller. It opened its mouth, revealing rows and rows of thorny teeth, and let out an ear-piercing shriek.

 _Oh, that’s great. Now it’s angry._ Soma kept his sword close. _So am I._

The plant-creature swiped its arm, whipping thick, wriggling vines across the air. Soma cut them down. _“Ha! Is that all you’ve got?”_ He drew his sword arm back, the whip-sword curving in a long and glinting arc as the blade’s segments pulled apart. One of the statues behind him flew to pieces as the blade struck it on the backswing.

Something hit him in the back of the neck and his shoulders—something wet, thick, hot, and sticky, and Soma found himself lifted up off the ground as the sticky substance flowed down his back and over his arms. The whip-sword fell from his grip in mid-swing, the curling blade swishing through the air below him; if Soma hadn’t dropped it, it would have wrapped around him and filleted him.

Soma looked upward and saw a great big spider the size of a truck perched on the side of one of the garden’s marble columns. It had a hairy black carapace and rusty red stripes on its bulbous abdomen, and where its head should have been was the torso of a nubile woman with flowing red hair and a slavering vertical mouth running from her collarbone to her navel. A thick line of ropy and glistening webbing—the same webbing that had ensnared him—hung from the spider-centaur’s tooth-lined torso-mouth as the centaur’s human arms slowly reeled him in.

The plant-creature circled below Soma, trailing behind it a forest of writhing and wriggling vines, and started to scale the same marble column on which the eight-legged spider-centaur perched. Its vines whipped around the cylinder, cutting into the marble as the creature hauled itself up. Soma dangled helplessly between the two creatures. Of all the creatures in this castle that could kill him, Soma was caught between what were probably the two most Freudian.

“ _I saw him first, Tarantina!”_ the plant-creature snarled. _“You unweb him this instant! The bounty is mine by rights!”_

 _Bounty? What bounty?_ Soma thought. Soma also thought: _These things can_ talk?

“ _Rosalie, you simpleton!”_ the spider-centaur called out as it continued to haul the webbing entangling Soma higher and higher. _“There is more to life than money! Like the delicious taste of a human child!”_

Soma struggled against the webbing. “I’m almost eighteen!” he protested.

“ _Money can buy_ many _delicious human children, you foolish peasant!”_ the plant-woman below countered.

“You don’t want me!” Soma called out. “I’m too old!”

“ _Explain!”_ shouted the spider-woman, ignoring Soma.

“ _Money can be exchanged for goods and services!”_

The spider-centaur licked her lips as Soma struggled with the webbing. He’d lose his stealth advantage, but if he could just slip out of the cloak Alphys had provided for him, he could…

The plant-woman dug her thorny talons into the marble column and continued her ascent. If Soma could wriggle his way out of the CuttleCamo, he might be able to… fall right into this lovely lady.

 _Please, ladies, don’t fight over me,_ Soma thought to himself. _There’s plenty of Soma to go around._ “Hey! What if… you _both_ take me in, and split the bounty fifty-fifty?”

Both Tarantina and Rosalie pondered Soma’s offer.

“Come on.” Soma struggled with his coat. “Spare my wretched life, will you?”

“No,” Tarantina decided.

“Warp and Woof only want your head,” Rosalie explained. “Full disclosure, I was just going to throw away the rest of you.”

Well, there went pleading for his life.

The monsters went back to fighting among themselves. _“_ _Tarantina, you two-timing back-stabber, if you eat this kid I will pluck all but_ one _of your legs off!”_

“ _Try me, bitch! You come near me and I’ll dump weed killer into your water!”_

“ _My girlfriend’s got a rolled-up newspaper with your name on it, you rancid ‘rancho!”_

“ _Well, I’ve got a million eggs ready to hatch inside your abdominal cavity, mulch-for-brains, because_ I _for one am mature enough to have a steady, committed relationship!”_

“ _You_ ate _your husband during the wedding vows!”_

“ _Yes, and it was a steady, committed dinner!_ And _he was delicious!”_

While the monsters aired their personal grievances, Soma flipped the switch sewn into the CuttleCamo cloak’s cuff, turning the cloak invisible. It wasn’t perfect cover—he knew his face and legs would still be visible—but it would be enough of a shock to distract his captors, if even for a moment.

The reaction from Tarantina was immediate. _“What the hell?!”_ she shouted. _“Where’d he go?”_

“ _He’s right below you, you dumb—”_ Rosalie shouted as Soma slipped his arms out of the cloak, fell out of the spider-woman’s webby grip, and smashed his boot into the plant-woman’s face as he fell.

At the same time, a shot rang out, and Tarantina reared back as a bullet grazed her side and bore a hole in her bloated abdomen.

The two monsters’ enraged howls were in perfect harmony. Using Rosalie’s face as a stepping-stone, Soma leaped to the ground, hitting the grass and ducking into a roll, and grabbed the whip-sword off the dew-streaked grass. Another strike from the whip-sword’s blade cleaved the plant-woman’s torso in half as she pounced on him, the severed halves gushing yellow-green sap.

Tarantina took off, vanishing into the upper levels of the hanging gardens, her spiderweb lasso dragging Soma’s invisibility cloak trailing behind her. Soma looked in the direction of the gunshot and saw Hammer sitting on a balcony on the opposite side of the courtyard. The man gave Soma a quick thumbs-up before vanishing into the castle.

So it seems Hammer wasn’t as much of a Switzerland as he claimed. Soma made a note to thank him later as he made a beeline for the library. But first, a detour—that spider-centaur had something he needed back.

–

“Dammit! Don’t these guys know who I _am?”_

A hail of bullets whizzed past Asriel’s ear, nicking his skin and drawing a pink blossom on his fur, as he and Undyne ran through the reservoir’s slick tunnels, gaining distance on the soldiers who’d ambushed them. Ahead, where the tunnel opened up into a tall chamber stretching down into the bowels of the castle, were a series of sloped canals of slick and mossy stone filled with rushing water.

“I’m Asriel Dreemurr, and I have diplomatic immunity, dammit!” Asriel shouted at the mercenaries over the roar of gunfire. It was to no avail—as far as these guys were concerned, he and Undyne were just more beasts inhabiting this deathtrap of a castle.

Asriel skidded to the edge of the tunnel, his feet churning up moss coating the mouth of the pipe, as Undyne whirled around and placed her hand on the damp stone floor, sending an electric shock through the water and delivering shock to the assailants that lifted some of them right off their feet.

Asriel prepared to dive, but stopped short.

The stream from the canal beneath him was frothy and babbled incessantly—and the water was running _uphill_ , into a smaller pipe set underneath the tunnel. If he wanted to swim down, deeper into the castle’s foundation, there’d be no beating that current. He’d be swept up in that pipe and dragged to god-knows-where and suffocate/drown to death behind a wall.

Undyne braced her hands against Asriel’s back. “C’mon, no time for cold feet!” She pushed, and Asriel stumbled forward, frantically windmilling his arms as he regained his footing.

“Look at the water!” he snapped.

She peered down at it. “Oh.”

Asriel scanned the long hallway for another way down. The lips of the aqueduct canals, above the waterline, were curved and looked slippery and perilous; trying to stay on the sides would only plunge them in the backwards-running water. “Chara’s down there somewhere, and they’re in trouble. Any ideas?”

Another shot rang out as reinforcements bore down on the two of them, prompting Asriel to nearly leap out of his fur.

“They probably _are_ the trouble,” Undyne muttered as she scanned the hall above the canals, still fiddling around with the circuitry in her prosthetic to get her arm to work again. Her fingers twitched and spasmed as they came back to life.

Asriel looked up and noticed an iron rail running overhead, leading to a platform in the distance and a rickety ladder leading down into the castle’s depths. “Undyne, look!”

Undyne looked, saw exactly what Asriel had seen, and scooped Asriel up in one arm. “Hang on.” She and her king shot forward, propelled across the length of the rail solely by the force of magnetism like a bullet train. They swung to the ledge on the other end of the aqueduct, the wind rushing past them. Asriel’s feet skimmed the frothy water before landing on solid rock once again.

A slick ladder led deeper into the bowels of the castle, and Asriel and Undyne both slid down it, falling far out of range. They soon reached the bottom of the shaft, climbing past dozens of zigzagging flights of upward-flowing canals on their way down before touching solid ground again.

Asriel scanned the dripping tunnels. No sign of Chara down here… at least not yet. Couldn’t hurt to call them again.

Asriel put his finger to his throat and found nothing but his own fur. The second half of his communicator—it must have lost its adhesion and fallen off, no thanks to the bath he’d taken. “Captain, be a dear and try to reach Chara again for me, will you?”

Undyne crossed her arms and scowled.

Refusal of a direct order? By one of his best friends? What was Undyne thinking? “That’s an _order,_ Captain. You _do_ still take orders from me, right? What happened to Chara?”

Undyne didn’t answer.

Asriel repeated his question, more firmly this time. So Undyne told him.

“I told you,” he growled, “to put aside your vendetta.”

“‘Vendetta?’ I’m just looking after you, _Your Majesty._ I’m a _Royal Guard,_ you’re _royal,_ I _guard_ you.” Undyne clamped her hands on Asriel’s shoulders. Eye met eyepatch, and eyepatch met eye. “You’re not seeing straight, Asriel. Chara’s running circles around you. How can _you_ of all people not see it?”

Asriel forced Undyne’s hands off his shoulders. “Don’t question my judgment. You’re my captain and I’m your king. I’m sick and tired of your unfounded, irrational—”

“I’m just looking after you!” She and Asriel circled each other like wild dogs about to fight. “Think about how _I’d_ feel if you ended up like your dad! Is _that_ what you want?”

“Don’t you bring my father into this—”

Undyne slapped him across the face.

Across _his_ face!

“They’re a murderer and a liar and they’re playing you for a damn fool—You’re going to get yourself _killed!_ _”_

“ _You’re fired!”_ The two words tore through Asriel’s throat, barked with a ferocity and viciousness he hadn’t spoken with, let alone _shouted_ with, in years.

Undyne shrank back, diminished. “Wh— _what?”_ Even her voice was smaller, small like Undyne’s boisterous voice had never been.

Asriel’s cheek still smarted. “I said you’re _fired,_ Undyne.”

“You can’t do this to me.”

“I _can._ Your duty is to the royal family, and Chara is my family, whether you like it or not. If you can’t do your job—”

“I’m _trying_ to do my job! But when you’re not listening to me—I’m not just your _servant._ I’m your _friend,_ Asriel. We’ve been friends since you were _fourteen!”_ Undyne shoved him down the corridor, slipping on the slick stones. “We were friends all the way until you put on that damn crown and started working yourself to death!”

“Oh, there you go again! What’s wrong with taking my job seriously?” Asriel lunged at her, and their hands met—fingers locked together, arms pushing against each other, neither of them budging an inch until both their strength gave out.

“We made a new constitution to stop you from killing yourself and that worked, yeah, for like _five seconds_ before you started doing it all over again. It’s like you don’t even _know_ us anymore!”

Asriel regained his footing, conjured a fiery spear and held it to his chest, insulted and incensed. “I have my work and you—”

Lightning met fire—Undyne’s spear, aquamarine, against Asriel’s yellow-gold partisan. “What’s so fun about work, Asriel? Most miserable job in the kingdom!”

“This isn’t about work!” Asriel protested.

“Does it make you _feel good?_ Do you get some kind of _high_ out of it?” She struck at the shaft of his blade again, and again, throwing up turquoise and gold sparks. “Because that’s the only way I can imagine you’re so eager to wade around in the muck of politics that you start getting the shakes—” _slash_ “if you go _ten minutes—”_ _slash_ “without addressing sales taxes—” _slash_ “or budget negotiations—” _slash_ “or _parliamentary demographics!”_

Asriel caught her spear in his crossguard and dragged it out of her hands, and twisting his spear around, struck Undyne across the face with the shaft. “That’s all beside the point!”

“ _No, it isn’t!”_ Undyne grabbed his partisan, tore it from his grasp, and shoved the blade all the way into the wall before slamming Asriel into the wall next to it, knocking the wind out of him. His head cracked against the bricks and he saw stars.

“ _I want my friend back!”_ she cried out, bruised face inches away from his.

Silence blanketed the tunnels as Asriel slumped down, sinking into the thin layer of slime covering the tunnel wall.

“I know you’re an adult now and you have—yes, I know it’s the most important job in the kingdom, of course—but I want the Asriel who was _more_ than just a prince.” Undyne fell against the opposite wall. “I want to spar with you like old times and watch dumb cartoons with you like old times and just—hang out with you like old times! Jeez, Asriel, even the busiest congresspeople over in DC go out drinking with their buddies on Capitol Hill every once in a while! Why can’t we do _that?”_

Asriel had had a lot of venomous words piling up in his head, but he couldn’t remember any of them anymore. The strength fled from his body. “I-I—I’m sorry,” he stammered. “I didn’t…”

Undyne drew back, cringing at her own behavior. “Asriel, jeez, are you okay?”

“No, you’re right. I mean—yes, yes, I’m fine.” He let out a sigh. “I just can’t help myself.”

Undyne collapsed too, panting as she sat on the cold, damp stone floor. “You can’t keep going on like this, Asriel. You’re working yourself half to death.”

“A king must sacrifice himself for his people. That’s what Dad did.”

“You don’t have to be like Dad.” Undyne often referred to the late King Asgore as such—he’d been like a father to her since she’d been a child, and Undyne had always been a sort of big sister to Asriel.

“I have to live up to his example.”

“No, you don't. I _knew_ the guy, kiddo. He wouldn't have wanted you living your life like _this._ You want to prove you’re worthy of his title?” Undyne sighed. “Just don’t commit any war crimes and you’ll be fine. Y’know, I hate to agree with your mom, but Asgore set the bar pretty low.”

“He _gave his life_ to—”

“That’s not what normal leaders _do,_ Asriel. Hate to tell you this, but the Prime Minister of Canada isn’t planning on taking a bullet for anyone anytime soon. You hold yourself to that standard and—and that's _suicide.”_

Asriel smiled a pained smile as he caught his breath. “Yeah. Guess you’re right.” He felt horrible now for how he’d neglected their friendship since he’d been crowned king. Chara wasn’t the only thing that had come between the two of them.

Undyne crawled next to him. “I know it sounds like I’m jealous. And—you know what? I am! I wanted you to open up and be—you know, a _person_ again. And you are… but you’re you’re not hanging out with _me,_ you’re hanging out with someone you barely even _know,_ even if you think you do _._ ”

Again with her suspicion. “Chara isn’t—”

“I know, you keep telling me, but—they could be dangerous, more than you want to believe, and that scares me. I’m _scared_ for you, Asriel.”

“Undyne. I need you to understand.” Asriel felt his chest tighten around his heart. “The Chara I knew is _dead._ Not _just_ dead: Zero even tried to take their _memory_ away from me. They _invaded_ my childhood, _perverted_ my memories, almost made me _hate_ them… I—” He could feel tears welling up, and as Undyne’s blue-scaled face turned into a murky blur, he looked to the algae-slicked floor. “This Chara… I know they aren’t _my_ Chara, I _know_ I don’t really know them, but they’re the closest I’ll _ever_ be able to get, and…” Asriel so desperately wanted to say, _and maybe they’ll forgive me,_ but the words caught in his throat.

 _And I know they might be dangerous,_ Asriel thought. _They still keep secrets from me… and there’s still a seed of doubt in my mind. A seed I can’t allow myself to water, a seed I can’t let take root—I_ have _to believe in Chara._

_Because if I don’t… if I waver for even a second…_

_I just might kill them myself._

Undyne put a hand on his shoulder. “I—I’m sorry, Asriel.”

“I felt the same way you did when they showed up,” Asriel confessed. “I—” He thought back to that night his sibling had confronted him. “I—I had a relapse. I almost _hurt_ them. I looked them in the eyes and they were _afraid_ of me, Undyne. Not afraid _for_ me, they really thought I was going to _kill_ them. And for a second… so did I.”

“Oh.” Undyne gave Asriel a big, comforting squeeze. “I’m sorry.”

“No, no, _I’m_ the one who should be sorry.” Asriel wiped the tears from his eye, clearing his vision. “The same thing happened to you, didn’t it?”

“Yeah.” Undyne fiddled with an exposed wire sticking out from the gash in her robotic arm, sparks flying from the two leads as she tested the slow, sluggish movements of the metal fingers on her prosthetic hand. “The both of us freaked out. I guess I owe them an apology, huh?”

“I should have known better. I’ve been unfair to you.” Asriel smiled and patted her on the shoulder. “And I’m sure Chara didn’t mean it. They couldn’t have known they’d trigger you. But when we see them again, I'll make certain they give you an apology.”

“So I’m not fired?”

Asriel laughed. “What? No! I can’t just _verbally_ fire you, there’s paperwork, and I’d have to do it in triplicate. Why would I waste my time with all that?” He stood up, pulling Undyne up with him. “Onward, my captain?”

Undyne bowed. “Onward, sire. Nice to have you back, Asriel.”

They pressed onward, deeper into Dracula’s castle where Asriel hoped Chara would be waiting… and safe.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, it sure is great that Asriel and Undyne have been able to reconcile their feelings.
> 
> Next chapter we'll find out what Yoko and Mina have been up to.


	18. The King in Yellow, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Yoko and Mina encounter a terrifying enemy.

Meanwhile, in the darkness of the lower level of the library, Yoko strained her ears, while Mina’s eyes darted back and forth. There was something here in the library with them.

[Is that his real name? ‘Alucard?’] Mina asked.

[Yeah. He’s a vampire. Well, half-vampire.] Yoko held her palm against her broken wrist and used the sigil completed by her pinkie finger to freeze the moisture around it, dulling the pain considerably.

[And you’re a witch.]

[The good kind. Like in _The Wizard of Oz.]_

Mina looked up. [Is Mr. Alucard going to be okay?]

Yoko hoped so. She touched the pad on her throat. “Operator, this is Yoko.”

Alphys’ voice crackled through her head. _“Miss Yoko! What’s your status?”_

“Hi, Alphys. I’ve got Mina with me, but Alucard and I have been separated. Can you patch me through to him?”

“ _Oh, y-yeah, definitely—st—gi—lo?—Yo—can you—e—”_

After noisy punctuations of static white noise, the signal went out. Trying again yielded only static. _Beta version indeed,_ Yoko thought.

“So this really _is_ Dracula’s castle.” Mina smiled nervously. “I’m glad I didn’t eat the food.”

“What?”

“In European legends—if you’re a guest of the fair folk, and you take food from them, then you belong to them. This castle is like that, right?” Mina reached down for one of the loose pages littering the ground.

“Um. No.” Yoko laughed, and then cringed when she heard Mina’s stomach growl. “You haven’t eaten anything all day?”

Mina nodded. No wonder she looked faint.

“We’d better hurry, then.” Yoko fumbled for her phone, thankfully unharmed from her fall, and turned on the flashlight. Under the bright, unwavering white beam of light she could see no difference between the hallway in front of her and the hallway behind her. “Forward or backward?”

“Forward.” Mina held out the page she’d been reading. [Miss Yoko, can you look at this?]

Yoko had one hand full of fire and another that hurt when she tried to move her fingers, and so was unable to take the page from Mina. [Hold it up for me.]

[It’s from a physics book,] Mina said, holding the page in front of Yoko. It was indeed—a page about what looked like an overview of angular momentum. [But look at the picture.]

Yoko’s eyes were drawn to the picture. It should have been some sort of illustration to match the text. Instead, it was a drawing of a long, dark corridor, just like the drawing she’d seen earlier… except the figure in yellow was closer. Clearer.

A figure dressed in a mustard-colored robe, its face completely obscured by a featureless white mask. She’d seen that person before—they were somewhere in the library. [Put it back.]

There it was again—a hissing, chittering noise, like an overgrown millipede clacking its mandibles behind her. But there was nothing behind Yoko Belnades but the darkness.

 **Yoko…** A heavy, crackling voice, whispers on the air, with a bubbling overtone to it that suggested the speaker had a throat full of phlegm.

[Mina. I don’t want to scare you…] Yoko pulled the girl closer. [But I think we’re being hunted.]

[By what?]

Before Yoko could respond, Mina yelped and dug her fingernails into Yoko’s bicep. [What was that?]

[What?]

[C-couldn’t you hear that?]

Yoko strained her ears, but picked up nothing but the faraway, indistinct creaks of rickety old bookshelves settling like the frames of old, dilapidated homes. [What did it sound like, Mina?]

[Like a giant bug…]

[…Right behind your ear,] Yoko finished. They were both hearing the same things, at different times, and neither could hear the other’s tormentor. _I think I’ve figured it out._ [There’s something,] she said, trying very hard to mask the tremors in her voice, [inside our heads.]

Alone against an unknown enemy, the young witch fruitlessly tried to suppress the urge to shiver. Was this how Alucard felt when he fought? Did Yoko have the strength to handle an enemy like this on her own? She wasn’t a fighter—and she’d only ever dealt with hostile forces by Alucard’s side, knowing that he could protect her. She was barely even a proper witch! An intern, an apprentice, maybe, at _best._ Here she was, in over her head with a girl who needed her help.

**The worst kind of “over your head” you could be in, Yoko, and you’re _in_ it.**

_Who are you?_ Yoko thought.

**You may call me the King in Yellow. A pleasure to meet you, dear.**

Yoko cringed. _What are you doing in my head?_

**Waiting.**

Mina picked up another sheet of paper. [It’s the thing in this picture, isn’t it, Miss Yoko?] Her voice cracked. [The man in yellow. It’s following us.]

Yoko glanced at the page. The same drawing of the tunnel—but the King in Yellow was closer now, more distinct details visible in the flickering torchlight. The changes in the light made the figure seem to move on its own, imprisoned as it was in the ink on the page. The mustard-colored-robed creature had shifted, raising a withered, blackened hand. Its fingers curled in a grotesque triskelion symbol.

 _Every time I look at it, it gets closer._ What would happen if it got _too_ close?

 **I think you** _**know** _ **what will happen when I get too close,** the King in Yellow whispered in her ear, in a slimy voice that recalled sleazy men who reeked of cigarette smoke and got too close to you at the bar. The voice of someone who thought he was being charming but, try as he might, couldn’t hide the fact that he wanted very much to hurt you.

[Mina. Don’t look at any more pages.] Yoko took a deep, shuddering breath and tried to clear her mind. [That’s how he gets into your head. If you keep reading… he’ll kill us.]

**Oh, but you _do_ like to read, don’t you? And just look at all these books you can read here… **

[I think I can look,] Yoko continued, [one or two more times. Two or three for you, Mina. The closer the King in Yellow comes…]

Mina swallowed hard.

[The closer we are to death,] Yoko finished.

In the darkness ahead of her, Yoko heard a distant man’s scream and the telltale sound of a heavy hardcover book slapping against the cold stone floor, and seconds later, one of the gray-suited soldiers came running down the corridor like a bat out of hell, panting and gasping for air. He stopped in front of Yoko and Mina, his facemask pulled up and his face drenched with sweat. His wide and darting eyes were like the eyes of a terrified horse.

“You saw him.” He looked at Yoko and Mina with wild eyes. “The yellow man. You saw him in the drawings too, didn’t you? How many times?”

“Three,” Yoko answered.

“Two,” Mina answered.

“Four.” The man coughed, clutching his side. His rifle dangled from his limp right arm. “His hand… reached out of the p-page at me…”

“It’s okay,” Mina told the distraught soldier. “Just don’t read any more books, right?”

The soldier shook his head, staring off sightlessly into the distance. The glassy look in his eyes vanished, and the soldier raised his gun. “Behind you! Move! Out of the way!”

Yoko pulled Mina to the side and looked back—nothing but the darkness, punctuated by flickering globes of torchlight. Nevertheless, the soldier fired wildly into the air, the muzzle flash from his rifle lighting the corridor up like a strobe light, the roar of gunfire echoing through the cavernous library.

“Look!” The soldier jabbed his gun at thin air. “Can’t you see him?”

“There’s nothing there!” Yoko shouted at him, scarcely able to hear her own voice, as her ears still rung from the sound of gunfire. “It’s all in your head!”

“He’s real! _My god, he’s real!”_ The soldier stumbled backward, dropping his rifle, falling on his backside and scuttling backward like an upturned crab across the marble floor. He flung up his arms, let out a strangled cry, and began to hyperventilate, his breathing growing shallower and faster until, like a patient flatlining on an operating table, his breathing stopped altogether, and with a final scream that faded into a croaking death rattle, his eyes rolled up and the soldier slumped over, dead.

 _[_ _F-four times,_ _]_ Mina whispered. [ _M-Miss, he looked at the drawing four times and then he died._ _]_

**Come on. One more time, Yoko. Aren’t you curious about what’s behind that mask? _He_ found out. How you must envy him…**

“Shut up!”

[I-I’m sorry,] Mina warbled.

[Not you, sorry.] Yoko reached out and slid a book out of the bookshelf, scarcely aware she was doing it.

Mina nearly screamed. [Miss Yoko, what are you doing?]

Yoko noticed the book in her hand, yelped, and dropped it, letting the dusty paperback flop against the floor. Her heart pounded. She’d nearly killed herself. Did the King in Yellow have some control over her body? Or was it like an addiction—one more beer, one more cigarette, one more fix?

**Curiosity killed the cat, Yoko, but who knows? Perhaps satisfaction can bring it back. Give it a try…**

Yoko squeezed her eyes shut. She could grab as many books as she wanted as long as she couldn’t see them. But no—she could still open her eyes whenever she wanted. [Mina. Listen carefully. I need you to blindfold me.]

[W-with what?]

[Anything. Please.] She kept her eyes shut. [Am I holding a book right now?]

[What? No!]

 _Thank God for small miracles._ [If I open my eyes,] Yoko said, trying to keep her voice as level and her breaths as regular as she could, [and I’m holding a book, the King in Yellow will come out of the book and kill me. So you need to make sure I can’t open my eyes.]

Yoko handed her phone to Mina so she could hold out the flashlight. Mina took it, and moments later Yoko could hear the sound of fabric tearing as Mina tore a strip from the hem of her skirt and knelt down. She bowed her head as Mina wrapped the makeshift blindfold across her eyes. In an instant, the darkness around her became palpable, cloying, and unfathomable. [You’re good with knots, right, Mina?]

[Yes, of course! And I’ll slap your hand if you try to untie it.]

[Kick me in the shin or something, too.]

[Miss Yoko, I’m not _that_ violent. Who do you think I am? _Soma?]_

[A slap will have to do.] Yoko took a deep, calming breath. [There’ve got to be staircases leading up to the higher levels down here. We’re bound to run into them sooner or later, but you’ll have to be my eyes.]

Mina took her hand. [You’re frightened, right, Miss Yoko?]

Yoko nodded. [Terrifed.]

The girl let out a tense and nervous laugh and squeezed Yoko’s hand. [Good. If you weren’t, I would think there’s something wrong with you.]

Yoko laughed as Mina pulled her along. “We’ll be all right. _Ganbatte, Mina-san_ _.”_

“‘Do your best, everybody?’” Mina asked. “But it’s just the two of us down here.”

“It—it was a pun,” Yoko admitted, embarrassed. “L—Let’s just get going, okay?”

“O-Oh!” Mina laughed nervously. “I get it! I must be frightened enough to not understand puns right now.”

–

Yoko had thought these gloomy sub-basement levels of Dracula’s library couldn’t have gotten much darker, but she’d been wrong. Zero visibility was an animal completely unlike low visibility, and Yoko was amazed at just how much she missed just being able to see her nose in front of her face. Sans sight, the library came alive with sounds—creaking steps, settling shelves, groaning planks of wood and chittering insects and rodents; and, of course, hers and Mina’s constant footsteps across marble tiles, up rickety staircases, across perilous wooden walkways.

[Miss Yoko?]

[What is it, Mina?]

[Can you—tell me what the man in yellow looks like?]

[He’s… covered in yellow, and he has a mask on. Why?]

[Just curious, Miss Yoko.]

Yoko’s blood ran cold. [Mina… you haven’t read anything, have you?]

[No! But…]

 **You** **people** **are all alike,** the King in Yellow whispered in Yoko’s ear. **Hold the Fruit of Knowledge just outside your reach… and you’ll walk off a cliff to get it.**

[Miss Yoko, I can’t stop wondering.]

[Wonder about something else.] Yoko racked her brain for something, a conversation starter, anything. [Mina, what do you like to read about?]

**Obviously, she likes to read about _me._**

“Shut up.”

[What? B-but Miss Yoko, I didn’t even—]

[Mina, I’m sorry. I wasn’t talking to you. Go on.]

[I like supernatural things. Ancient myths. Ghosts and spirits.]

[Makes the life of a shrine maiden a bit more exciting, doesn’t it?]

[Does it ever. If he weren’t trying to kill us,] Mina said, letting out a nervous laugh, [the King in Yellow would make an exciting story, wouldn’t he?]

**I could tell her all the men I’ve killed. Artists, writers, playwrights, actors, philosophers and scientists alike… even the occasional bored housewife who found my play a nice diversion…**

Yoko grimaced and tried to change the subject as quickly and inelegantly as possible. [Have you done anything with your friends lately?]

[You mean Soma?]

[Don’t you have any other friends?] Yoko asked. Mina was so chummy with visitors to the Hakuba Shrine, Yoko had just assumed she must have been the most popular girl in town.

[I—well, er, um… I suppose if you count yourself and Mr. Arikado—er, I mean, Alucard.]

[Really?] Three seemed an awfully low number, and that was being very charitable to Alucard (aside from his rapport with Yoko, he wasn’t the type to make friends).

[I never had many opportunities to make friends. No one my own age visits the shrine. Except… well, you know.]

[Soma.]

[Yes.] Mina was silent for a bit. [Miss Yoko, have you ever… dated?]

Yoko sighed in relief. At least it wasn’t a question about their current mutual tormentor. [Have _you?]_

Mina let out a nervous laugh. [I, er… I don’t think I know anybody like that.]

[No boys catch your eye yet?]

[No, Miss Yoko, never. I’ve tried, but… I don’t know if something’s wrong with me, or if—]

[Not even Soma?]

[I _like_ him, but I don’t think—]

[Girls, then?]

Mina froze up. [Um… no,] she replied, noticeably hesitating. [You must really think we’re going to die here,] Mina said, [if you feel the need to ask me out _here_ of all places.]

Now it was Yoko’s turn to feel embarrassed. [Oh, _that’s_ not what I meant, Mina.]

[I’m sorry,] said Mina, [my social life must sound very depressing to you.]

[Some people are just natural loners. There’s nothing wrong with it, unless you let other people tell you there’s something wrong about that. Don’t let it get to you.]

[Natural loners… like Mr. Alucard?]

[Yes, exactly. He seems to like being off by himself.]

[But what about you and him?]

Yoko let out a loud and surprised laugh that came up much louder and sharper than she’d intended. “What? Me and him?”

[Soma thinks you have a ‘Scully and Mulder’ thing going on. Y-you both go hunting for monsters, don’t you?]

[Ha! I don’t think Alucard could feel _that way_ about anyone who isn’t more than three hundred years old. He’s more of a big brother to me.]

In her head, the King in Yellow chuckled. **Perhaps you could introduce me to him. I’m** _**ancient.** _

Well, that little respite had been nice while it had lasted. “At least the King in Yellow doesn’t exclusively creep on women,” Yoko muttered, rolling her eyes behind the blindfold.

[Is he bothering you again?] Mina asked, squeezing Yoko’s hand. [The King in Yellow. Can you see him?]

Yoko’s breath caught in her throat. Once again, the King in Yellow was catching up to them. [Mina,] Yoko asked, with increasing urgency, [what is your earliest childhood memory?]

[My mother and I,] Mina answered, her voice shaking. Yoko could feel her hand slipping away, and gripped it tighter. [We were in the park. There was a man on the bench—with a robe, wearing a—Yoko, what’s happening to me? He’s not supposed to _be_ there…]

Every conversation came back to him, no matter how quickly the two of them ran away from him. It was like an infection, and Mina was in the later stages. [Mina. Be honest. Have you looked at any more pictures of the King in Yellow since I closed my eyes?]

[No…]

Yoko frowned.

[Y-yes! I had to. We’re in such a big library, Miss Yoko! Surely there has to be a book that tells us how to stop him!]

**Desperation does make strange bedfellows, does it not, Yoko? What will _yours_ drive you to?**

[Miss Yoko, I-I’m sorry, but we’re here in the dark, and there’s a monster in my head, and—and we’re in Dracula’s castle and I just—] Mina took a huge gulp of air. [I, I just saw a man _die_ in front of me…] She sniffled. [I’m sorry, I’m so sorry. I’m going to die here, aren’t I?]

This poor girl. This poor, sheltered, naive girl, homeschooled her whole life, socially stunted and socially awkward, raised to take her mother’s place in a career so antique most people had forgotten it existed and happy to do so. Mina had never deserved to be caught up in anything like this.

Yoko groped in the dark and latched onto Mina’s shoulder. [Mina, no. We’re both going to live through this, trust me—] Her words rang hollow in her own ears, and it broke her heart. And she had the feeling the despair filling her voice had broken Mina’s as well.

Mina pulled herself away from Yoko, letting the witch’s hand fall from her grip. [Miss Yoko, please, if you see Soma again, tell him I said I was sorry.]

Her heart sank into her stomach. Yoko reached for the blindfold and tried to lift it, but the cloth was tied too tightly around her head. “Mina,” she breathed, “please…” She reached around to the back of her head and fumbled at the knot Mina had tied in the ragged strip of red cloth she’d wrapped around her eyes. It was a tight, inscrutable ball of fabric, and her nails scratched at the knot fruitlessly. “Whatever you’re doing, trust me, I can help…”

The King in Yellow laughed. **No, I’m afraid only _I_ can help her now…**

Yoko could hear, her ears strengthened and attuned to the darkness, the sound of a page being turned. _“Mina, don’t you dare!”_ she cried out in desperation.

With her good hand prying at the knot of her blindfold, Yoko reached out with her other hand, broken wrist smarting, and tore the book from Mina’s grasp. Finally the knot came undone and the cloth fell from Yoko’s eyes, and the young witch looked straight into the sightless, empty gaze of the King in Yellow realized in muddy watercolors, every detail, every crack and scar and dimple on the blank mask he wore deepened by the light of the torches above. The painting was so real, it seemed to leap off the page, its mottled, mummified hand reaching out for her…

And the King in Yellow laughed.

**Yoko Belnades, you are _mine_ now…**

She screamed and fell backward, her heart pounding against her ribs like an angry beast in too small of a cage, the book falling spine-up on the floor as she hit the ground. Yoko could hardly breathe. The light was brighter—she and Mina had ascended several stories while she’d been blindfolded—but that thought brought little comfort to Yoko now.

Mina stood across from her, her eyes wide and rimmed with red, her cheeks wet with tears. She knelt down, grabbing Yoko by the shoulders. [Miss Yoko, you—]

“I’m going to die,” she said, surprisingly matter-of-factly even though the terror clawed at her brain, trying very hard to put on her bravest face and failing miserably. A hard lump in her throat caught her words like nightmares in the web of a dreamcatcher. _I’m going to die,_ Yoko thought, _and there’s nobody here to save me. Not Alucard. Not even myself. I’m just a failure of a witch, always have been, and that—that’s how I’m going to die._

 **A silly little girl,** the King in Yellow whispered, their voice ringing with ecstasy, **with a little spark in her hand and delusions of grandeur, who thought she could challenge an Elder God…**

 _[_ _Why did you do that for me, Yoko?_ _]_ Mina whispered. _“Why?”_

“Mina,” Yoko choked, “Alucard and I made a promise to get you to safety. I’m keeping that promise.”

The girl crawled over to Yoko and wrapped her arms around her, burying her face against Yoko’s shoulder, tears wetting her shirt. [Yoko, please, no. Get up. We’re not finished…]

They said your life flashed before your eyes when you were facing your death. All Yoko saw were regrets.

Yoko was never going to see Alucard again. Nor would she ever see her mother and father. Would they miss her? Alucard was over five and a half centuries old—a girl in her twenties was like a mayfly to him. He’d forget about her in a heartbeat. And she hadn’t spoken to her parents in months—not that she was estranged, just that she was so _busy._

She’d never finish her job with the Agency, never get a career that used her degree in chemistry, never be half as skilled of a witch as the ancestor of hers whom Alucard always spoke so highly of. Any ambitions she’d had—they ended here. They ended in darkness.

“I’m sorry. I really am. But it’s too late for me. Just leave me and run. You keep running and you never look back. Run all the way out of this castle. Your friend will be there for you.”

Mina tugged at Yoko’s arms, hauling her up, although Yoko’s legs wobbled beneath her. [No! Yoko, _you’re_ my friend, too, and I won’t let you sit here and die! ] She half-dragged Yoko across the library. _[_ _Come on!_ _Get up, Miss Yoko!_ _]_

Yoko just stared ahead, and saw—in the flesh—the King in Yellow, standing at the end of the dark corridor just as he had in the first picture. He glided along the floor, his thick, heavy mustard-colored robe swirling around him. The only hint that he had any body at all was the emaciated, skeletal arm poking out from the folds of his fluttering cloak as he came closer, closer, and the rank stench of death preceded him.

**Come to me, Yoko Belnades, and give me your young, brilliant mind—and your life!**

Yoko couldn’t breathe. Every beat of her heart brought the King in Yellow closer to her. Mina grabbed her by the arm and pulled, but her feet were rooted to the ground. [Yoko, please,] she shrieked.

The King in Yellow had her in his sights. And he wouldn’t stop coming for Yoko until she was dead. This was it. This was the end. Nowhere to run, no way to fight. The end of her short life.

The King would keep chasing her until she was dead—and when he caught her, she would die.

The soldier who’d fallen prey to him had died suddenly and with no external causes, as if the King in Yellow’s phantom form had simply sucked the life from his body with a single touch.

But what if…

**Yes, _what if?_ Tell me, Yoko, how will you get out of this one?**

Almost reflexively, Yoko placed her hand over her heart, curling in her ring finger to complete one of the magic circles tattooed into her palm. She could feel the hard, slick bulletproof vest beneath her shirt and hoped it wouldn’t get in the way. A flash of hope passed through her mind like a jolt of electricity.

This would either be the smartest thing she’d ever done, or the stupidest. And either way, it just might work.

“Mina,” she said, breathless, rushing to get the words out before it was too late, “it’s not over yet. Stay with me, because—”

“Yoko—”

_**Yoko—** _

The King in Yellow came rushing up to meet her. And before she could think and reconsider her decision, Yoko shot a bolt of lightning into her heart, stopping it instantly.

Her legs gave out, and everything else as well, and Yoko crumpled to the floor, hand falling from her chest. The King in Yellow passed her by, his image vanishing like a projection on a clearing patch of fog. A rushing wind blew his phantom body away and carried with it the smell of dead leaves—and he was gone, driven from the world and Yoko’s mind as if he’d never existed.

Yoko hit the ground, barely cognizant of the pain as the back of her head cracked against the wood floor, knowing she had only a few precious seconds of consciousness left, and without intervention her brain cells would start dying en masse in a matter of minutes. If she couldn’t be resuscitated immediately, her chances of survival would be slim to none.

Mina rushed over to Yoko’s limp body, putting a finger to her neck. She found no pulse. “Yoko, no, please—”

Yoko tried to take a breath, but found her lungs seized in her chest, the life in her body draining out faster than she’d ever anticipated. But she was still alive, if only for a few more minutes or seconds, and if only she could signal to Mina that she still had a fighting chance…

_[Oh, no, Yoko, please, no…]_

Yoko tried to raise her arm, but barely managed to lift a single finger. She wouldn’t be able to start her heart the same way she’d stopped it. There was scarcely any air left in her lungs.

How could she have done something so stupid and expect it to work?

The young witch’s vision was consumed by a long, dark tunnel, the same dark tunnel the King in Yellow had traveled down to reap her soul (albeit now mercifully empty), and had Yoko’s heart still been beating, it would have skipped a beat.

Yoko remembered her first real assignment with Alucard, hot off the heels of their first excursion to the Hakuba Shrine and their first encounter with precocious-yet-sheltered young Mina. A harrowing encounter in rural Germany with a so-called “corpse hydra,” a many-headed undead wyrm burrowed underground that had infested an entire town and consumed its inhabitants.

She remembered the mission like a long-ago nightmare but the aftermath vividly. Sitting on the bed in a hostel in Hamburg, scarcely able to breathe, sobbing into her hands because all she had done was force such an experienced vampire hunter with such a storied and illustrious career as Alucard to waste his energy looking after her; Alucard taking a place at her side, still stoic and severe in his demeanor but staying with her as a constant comforting presence long into the night with a cool hand on her shoulder.

For the last time, Yoko Belnades wondered about Alucard, of what peril he must have been in to have failed to come to her aid as he always had done before.

An eternity of nothing passed her by in an instant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STAND MASTER: ⁐̵̧͘͝᳇̶͝ರ̵͞Ὸ̨͟͡ኡ̴͡ᕉ̧͞͠ྔ̷҉⏏̶̕͞⇍̨҉  
> STAND NAME: [THE KING IN YELLOW]


	19. The King in Yellow, Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, the fight against the King in Yellow continues, and a new villain presents himself.

Yoko Belnades was dead.

The world around her had fallen silent, and so too had her racing mind gone dark. There were no more opportunities for reflection, no more chances for regret, no thought, no consciousness.

The quiet sound of a heartbeat, against the abyss of eternity, was nearly deafening.

And then Yoko came back, gasping for air and drawing long, deep breaths in between coughing fits that wracked her body, her sight restored, the blood flowing through her veins with renewed vigor, and she could feel every beat of her heart like the embrace of a dear and long-lost friend.

Mina knelt over her, her hands still placed on Yoko’s chest where she’d been trying desperately to start her heart again. A smile cracked across her tear-streaked face as Yoko’s eyes fluttered open. [Miss Yoko!]

Yoko weakly raised her head and couldn’t help but smile. “You… you did it, Mina!”

[I-is he still possessing you?]

Yoko closed her eyes, rested her head on the floor, and waited, letting the seconds pass her by. Nothing. “Only three people in here. Me, myself, and I.”

Mina laughed and held Yoko closer. [He told me I was wasting my time. There was nothing I could do to save you. He wouldn’t keep quiet and he wouldn’t stop laughing—but I _knew_ he was wrong!] Then she pulled away from Yoko, worried, pressing a hand to her forehead. [Will you have to do that to me, too?]

[I can’t take a risk like that again. We’ll have to find another way.] Yoko pulled herself up along the bookshelf, favoring her aching, thawing wrist. Her fingers did not run unbidden along the dusty spines of these cursed books: the addiction the King in Yellow had planted within her had been plucked out and crushed by her brush with death.

Yoko looked up and saw the high vaulted ceiling illuminated by clusters of torches surrounding the jade columns. There were only a few levels left to ascend, and then they would be home free.

Or would they be?

[What if I can’t ever read a book again?] Mina asked. [What if he follows me out of this library?]

Yoko thought back to when she and Alucard had entered the library.

The first book she’d flipped through in here hadn’t had the eldritch living illustrations of the King in Yellow on any of its pages, and she hadn’t started seeing those paintings until after she’d caught sight of the yellow-cloaked creature—the creature’s _real_ body, she presumed, not a phantom—climbing down into the library’s depths before she and Alucard had gotten separated.

And Mina had been reading books galore during her imprisonment, by the looks of it—yet it had not been until she’d come back with Alucard and Yoko that she’d fallen under the King in Yellow’s abominable spell.

Yoko fit the facts together.

_A_ _t some point,_ the young witch wondered, _during_ _Mina’s_ _captivity,_ _he_ became _the library._ _His real body is scattered across every page in every book in these catacombs_ _, waiting, planting projections of himself in the heads of anyone curious enough to read them._ Putting the pieces together filled her with a renewed energy, a zest for life forged both from the adrenaline accompanying her brush with death and the thrill of cracking an enemy’s strategy. She felt more alive than ever before.

“I know how the King in Yellow works.”

“What if you’re wrong?” Mina asked.

Yoko shrugged. “Then we’re both going to die,” she said, shocked at how nonchalantly the words slipped out.

Mina pondered Yoko’s reasoning. [So we might as well assume you’re right.] She slowly reached out for the bookshelf at her side, her hand shaking, feeling around as if it moved without her knowledge.

“Curiosity killed the cat.” Yoko slapped it away. “Satisfaction doesn’t always bring it back.”

[Are you certain he cannot leave the library with us?]

[Is he telling you something else?] Yoko sighed. [Come on. I have an idea.]

Mina’s eyes lit up. [Really? What?]

[If I tell you, the King in Yellow will know all about it.] Yoko tapped the side of her nose knowingly. [We can’t have that, can we? Trust me, I haven’t been wrong yet.] She still didn’t feel wholly confident in her assessment of the situation, but as the saying went, she was prepared to fake it until she made it.

Yoko froze her wrist again to dull the throbbing pain, swept Mina off her feet and over her shoulder despite her surprised protests, and carried her up to the next level. If the intellectual addiction the King in Yellow had planted in the girl had truly progressed to its final stages, it would take a lot more than slaps to the wrist to keep Mina away from all these books.

Yoko carried Mina back through the marble corridor leading to the room she’d sat in under armed guard for the past few hours. Mina nudged her in the stomach with her knee. [Miss Yoko, where are we going? Can’t you let me down now?]

[Patience, Mina. Patience.]

The next knee to Yoko’s stomach had a little more force to it. [It wasn’t me,] Mina said. [It was him.]

[I understand.]

The table was still there. The glass of water Mina hadn’t taken so much as a sip from, the loaf of bread she’d left completely untouched and the pepper shaker, and a stack of thick books on the floor.

Yoko set Mina down and slid the plate of bread across the table, picked up the glass of water, and poured it over the bread, watching it soak in and darken the loaf’s brown crust. “Watch this.”

Then she took the empty glass and rapped it against the edge of the table, shattering it and leaving the bottom in her hand, and with one of the ragged, glittering edges of broken glass, pricked her index finger.

Her fingers were still stiff on the hand with the broken wrist, and Yoko knew well that forcing herself to use that hand, even with her wrist frozen and numbed, could result in permanent damage. But there was no turning back now.

Suddenly, something grabbed Yoko by the wrist. No, not something—some _one,_ and not just some _one—_ Mina was digging her fingernails deep into her flesh. [Miss Yoko, I still don’t understand how you can hurt the King in Yellow with a lump of soggy bread.]

[I can’t, if that’s any consolation to the creep living in your head.] Yoko used the finger she’d pricked to trace a magic circle across the table and, satisfied with her handiwork, dumped the plate full of soggy bread in the center. When it came to drawing magic circles, pencil or ink would work, or even paint, although chalk was a mainstay (and conveniently erasable as well). But when you wanted something to _work_ , you used blood. Usually your own, but some alchemists weren’t picky.

When Yoko had been a little girl, before she knew she was a witch, before she’d found that chemistry book in her local library, she’d wanted to be a baker when she grew up. But cooking, baking, chemistry, alchemy—it was all just about the same thing, about changing and reshaping the world through chemical processes. It was just a matter of perspective: the shape of an elephant to three blind men who each proclaimed it to be like a snake, a spear, and a tree.

As the magic circle lit up, casting a blood-red light across the room, the soggy bread underwent a startling transformation and began to fizz and bubble. Yoko reached over, plunged her fingers into the mush, the bubbles tickling her skin like the eruption from a baking soda volcano.

Yoko lifted the soggy mass, letting some of the brown juices trickle down her forearm and stain her sleeve, and she turned to face the corridor. [Mina, stand to the side. Is the King in Yellow afraid?]

It took a few seconds for her to respond. [N-no? Er, he’s laughing at you right now.]

_It’s not quite the same recipe_ _as hers_ _, but I think Undyne would like this concoction._ “He should be afraid. Because, Mina, this isn’t _just_ a pile of soggy bread. It’s a pile of _fermenting_ soggy bread.”

“I don’t understand.”

Yoko walked the soggy, not-quite-bread-anymore concoction out the room and dropped it into the dark depths of the library, listening to it splat on the floor far below.

“What are you doing?”

Yoko plucked a book from the shelf one-handed, shaking it until a couple pages from its middle tore loose of the binding, and crumpled them up as the book fell spine-up on the platform beneath her. Pinching the wad of paper between her finger and thumb and holding it in her injured hand, wincing at the pain, Yoko lit the paper on fire and let the blackening, smoking wad flutter down like an astray ember.

“Miss Yoko?” Mina asked. “H-how was that supposed to do anything?”

Had she missed? “Maybe,” Yoko said, “if I just try again…”

“You don’t know what you’re doing, are you?” Mina asked, letting go of Yoko’s arm. “You don’t have a plan. You don’t have anything.”

“Just give it a sec,” Yoko insisted.

Mina bolted for the bookshelves, and it took all of Yoko’s might to restrain her. “There must be something in here, in one of these books, some kind of answer—we just have to find the right one!” She did everything to get Yoko off her short of biting her. “We can find it! We can find out how to stop him if we just—”

“Mina, stop!” Yoko pinned her against her chest with her forearm as the girl stomped on Yoko’s toes. “There are no answers here! Whatever he’s saying, he’s lying to you, Mina! Stand here and let me—”

Then the bomb finally went off, and a burst of scarlet fire lit up the murky depths and latched onto the thousands of books and old wooden shelving like kindling. A blistering gust of burning air blew by, and in a matter of seconds the cool, stale air of the library became hot and thick.

It wasn’t just that alcohol was flammable that made it a perfect weapon for a pissed-off alchemist. When a witch or sorceress made use of her own blood for a spell, a candle flame could easily become an inferno, a drop of water a raging ocean, a breath of air a hurricane.

In the right hands, with the right sacrifice, alcohol might as well be C4.

The fire quickly spread across the literary ossuary, hungry and augmented by magic. Damp, soggy, mildewy books dried out in an instant and burst into flames, pages curling and blackening, and as carbonizing shelves collapsed in on themselves and each other, sending flurries of black ash to the ceiling and piles of books to the floor dozens of feet below. The fire climbed higher faster than Yoko had anticipated, smoke billowing up and pooling around the vaulted ceiling and spiraling along the jade columns, and a horrible scream filled the air from every direction—a scream that could only have been the King in Yellow’s, as every atom he had spread through the library burned.

Yoko ran with Mina in tow, the wooden catwalks creaking and groaning beneath their stamping feet as their supports carbonized. Shelves collapsed under their own weight, plunging avalanches of books into the depths where the fire happily and greedily consumed them with the gusto of a starved wolf.

Their legs carried them out of the library, into flame-proof stone corridors that nevertheless still filled with acrid black smoke, the wooden bridges they’d ran across sloughing away and plunging into the abyss just seconds later. Yoko felt through the corridor, squinting as the acrid smoke stung her eyes and coughing, her lungs shouting warning signals to the rest of her body that she needed oxygen _now_ , and, to her dismay, found a solid wall right in front of her.

“No!” Yoko slapped her hand against the stone as if willing it to part for her like the Red Sea. This couldn’t be a dead end, not after all this, not after everything she’d done, every gamble that had led her this far. It wasn’t fair—it wasn’t _fair!_

Yoko dropped down and felt around the floor. No trapdoor. No exit. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t end like this.

With no other options, Yoko reached up for the ceiling, trying desperately with her injured hand to cover her nose and mouth against the acrid, thick smoke filling the tunnel.

There it was. A trapdoor in the ceiling! Thin seams denoted where a hatch had been set into the stone ceiling, and water dripped from the thin gaps. Water—true, it could kill her as well if there were too much of it, but it was more survivable than fire.

Yoko felt for a latch, pulled the trapdoor open, and let a cascade of water pour through it, soaking herself and Mina, nearly knocking the two of them down. Yoko held Mina tight and crouched low to the floor as the current strengthened around her feet and then ebbed as the diverted river poured into the library.

As the gout slowed to a trickl Yoko hauled Mina up and out. Instantly her lungs sucked in cool, brisk night air, and Yoko took a deep, grateful breath and rubbed the smoke and ashes from her eyes, coughing and struggling to fill her lungs.

Yoko and Mina had emerged in a now-empty fountain crafted from white marble and ivory, a Renaissance-styled statue of a nude woman still spitting water into the now-drained basin. It was a sort of courtyard within the castle, lush and verdant, enclosed by walls rising over a dozen stories and two towers rising into the swirling gray clouds. Wide, clear windows peered down on the garden from three sides, with the fourth side of the garden penned in by rows of balconies propped up by stone columns; moonlight shone through them.

It was a heavenly contrast to the hell they’d left behind. The wind ruffled Yoko’s drenched hair and clothes, carrying a sweet and perfumed scent across the air, as she pulled Mina the rest of the way up, struggling to find purchase on the slick stone as smoke poured into the air from the hatch below. [We did it,] she exclaimed, coughing through her words. [We did it, Mina!]

The two of them lay on the cool stone bottom of the fountain. [I’m sorry, Miss Yoko,] said Mina. [I don’t know what came over me.]

[It’s okay.] Yoko patted her on the back. [You were under a lot of stress. Is he still in your head?]

[No, ma’am. I can’t hear him anymore.] Mina sighed in relief. [You are amazing, Miss Yoko. I had no idea you could do such incredible things.]

[Neither could I, Mina,] Yoko told her as she pulled herself over the fountain’s marble lip and stepped onto the cool, wet grass. [Neither could I.] She offered her hand to Mina and helped wipe some of the ash and smoke residue from the girl’s cheek, unveiling her tawny skin from underneath a mask of soot.

Mina smiled wearily and weakly as she took Yoko’s hand. But as Yoko’s finger brushed against Mina’s she shrieked as a blackened, emaciated talon shot out of the ice cavern and dug its rotting nails into her ankle.

There, hauling itself out of the tunnel at the bottom of the fountain, scorched and damp and ragged, was the _real_ body of the King in Yellow, the body Yoko had seen before climbing into the library’s depths before she and Alucard had gotten separated. His stone mask was charred black and his yellow robes stained with soot; a foggy red light shone from deep within the inky eyeholes of his mask. Yoko could see fury in those eyes as his gnarled, withered claws dug tighter into Mina’s shin.

The King bellowed inhumanly as Yoko wrenched Mina free and dragged her out of the fountain and onto the dewy grass surrounding it. Neither of them had any time or energy to dwell on the refreshingly soft lawn, although it was a welcome respite from stone and wood; their enemy was still close at hand.

Yoko swore as she hit the ground and her ankle twisted, sending a jolt of pain up her leg. There was no way she’d be able to run like this, and given how dangerous the King’s phantom form had been, his physical body must be far greater a threat. Normally, this was the part where Alucard would swoop in, sword in hand, and…

As the King in Yellow loomed closer, Mina stood up tall and straight between him and Yoko, her face and clothes soot-stained, her fiery red hair tangled and snarled. Her shoulders quivered, yet she stood tall.

Yoko had known Mina since the girl had been scarcely thirteen, and that image of her had never left Yoko’s mind. In a certain sense, Yoko had never expected her to _actually_ grow up. But Mina was a young woman now, not a girl—nearly as old, in fact, as Yoko had been when the Agency had scooped her up and offered her a job.

It was here, in this moonlit garden, watching Mina stare down a demon who’d tried time and time again to murder her and seeing the steel in her body, that Yoko finally realized that while she’d had a lot of growing up to do, in the span of a few harrowing minutes, Mina had done it.

Mina reached into her robes with fumbling fingers, pulled out a shaker of salt, unscrewed the cap, and flung an eyeful of it in the King’s masked face. To Yoko’s surprise, he squealed in pain and reeled backward, smoke wafting from his blackened mask.

With that, she tipped the shaker over and with trembling hands drew a circle around herself and Yoko, pulling her to her side. while the King moaned and writhed in pain and dug at the eye sockets of his mask with gnarled fingers.

Exhausted, Mina collapsed onto the grass next to Yoko, panting with exertion and coughing out the ash in her lungs. There was a small, ragged circle of salt around them, scarcely wide enough to contain the both of them—yet the King in Yellow ran up to the edge of the circle and stopped short, as if blocked by an invisible barrier, and pounded on it, looking for all the world like a grotesque mime routine.

Yoko caught her breath. “What was _that?”_

[They say you toss spilled salt over your left shoulder to ward off the Devil,] Mina explained. [I had hoped an evil spirit like him would behave like a demon… or a slug.]

“Huh. Ingenious.” Yoko might not have ever thought of that on her own. She remembered the lone pepper shaker in Mina’s room. The thought that the salt shaker had been missing the whole time hadn’t even occurred to her.

“No,” said Mina, “I don’t mean to brag, but I think it was very genius.”

The King in Yellow drew back, and for a moment Yoko thought he might leave them entirely, retreating with his tail between his legs and his pride tarnished.

Instead, he walked in a slow circle around Yoko and Mina, the hem of his once-yellow robes brushing against the grass. **“You realize I merely have to wait,”** he wheezed. **“Even if it takes hours, the dew will wash the salt away; the gently dance of nature will erode your flimsy protections.”**

_And we can’t leave,_ Yoko realized, _as long as he’s here. We haven’t protected ourselves… we’ve_ trapped _ourselves._ She took Mina by the shoulder and held her close.

“ **You think you are safe now** **,”** the King in Yellow bellowed in his raspy voice, his voice echoing across the gardens, pointing a gnarled claw at Yoko and cackling. **“** **But** **I am a patient creature.** **You will have to leave this circle sooner or later, and when you do—I will be here!** **”** The King pounded on the invisible barrier yet again, and out of instinct Yoko flinched and nearly fell out of the barrier. **“Solomon promised me your souls, and I** _ **will**_ **have them!”**

Despite the mortal terror, or perhaps because of it, Yoko laughed in his face. “Slumming it with those guys? Is the jobs market that bad in R'lyeh?”

The King in Yellow was taken aback. **“** **Who are you,”** he screeched, **“to show such insolence to a King?”**

Yoko’s taunting fell silent.

“ **A hairless ape,”** the King in Yellow taunted, taking advantage of Yoko’s silence, **“nothing more. I have haunted your people since you were drawing buffalo on cave walls… and you thought you could _outsmart_ me?”**

Yoko looked to the heavens and saw a dark shadow flit past one of the tall windows in the castle above, saw the swing of a sword, and for a second thought it might have been Alucard.

“Well… my friend here…” Yoko held Mina closer. _“S_ _he’s_ a shrine maiden,” Yoko said, “and I… I’m a witch!”

The King in Yellow began to laugh.

As if on cue, one of the giant windows looking down on the garden burst into millions of tiny shards of glass, and as they showered down on the lawn like glittering confetti, a man in a dark cloak leaped from the window.

He flew across the air, landing safely on the grass behind the King in Yellow, his back to the demon. The bisected and decapitated corpse of a giant black spider fell with him, crumpling to the ground, a bright red orb flying out of it and embedding itself in the man’s chest.

With one swift motion, the man thrust his sword behind him, stabbing the King in the back. The blade burst out of the demon’s chest in a shower of putrid brown and black gore. Next, he pulled loose the sword and with one swing, cleft the King’s head from his shoulders, the blade whipping in a long and curved arc, catching and throwing the light of the moon overhead.

“ _Alucard!”_ Yoko breathed.

The King in Yellow—or what was left of him—crumpled to the ground, as if whatever had been holding up his robe had deflated.

And the king’s killer reached up and pulled down his hood, revealing a young face, snow-white hair framing a pale fawn-brown face, and dark, intense eyes held in a violent glare before instantly softening as he laid eyes on Mina.

Yoko couldn’t believe her eyes. “S— _Soma?”_

Although his clothes were soaked and stained with blood and other unidentifiable and colorful fluids, Soma Cruz still had a rogueish smile as he wiped his sword on the grass. “Kept you waiting, huh?”

–

A man with pale silvery hair observed the scene in the yard below with great interest as the breeze wafting through the hanging gardens made the pale blue silk stole draped over his ivory suit flutter and dance.

_Soma Cruz. I knew I’d smelled something on you back there in the stockades,_ Graham Jones thought, seething internally _._ It was no wonder Neo-Ecclesia had wanted him taken out of the picture.

_If only you’d left well enough alone…_ His violet-gray eyes narrowed. From this distance, and with the two women accompanying the young man, Graham could do nothing but watch. _But if you interfere any further, boy… I’ll see to it you_ suffer _for it._

–

Mina hugged Soma, and then hugged him again, and then a third time, and each hug sent a warm tingle through Soma’s body. She clung to him, sobbing into his chest. “Soma! I knew you’d show up here!” Soma couldn’t begin to imagine how frightened she must have been, snatched away and taken to this horrible place for no other reason than to drive him away, and he held her tight as she trembled in his embrace.

At the very least, Mina seemed relatively unhurt, and Soma could take solace not only in that, but in the fact that Solomon and King Crimson’s plan had backfired horribly, and _both_ of them would suffer for it, if he had anything to say about it.

“Good. You’re not surprised.” Soma pulled away and looked at Mina, her waterlogged and tangled hair, her weary eyes, her soot-stained robes; and then he looked at Yoko, who was in just as bad shape. “You both look like shit. You know that, right?”

Yoko shivered in the cold air. “We’ve had a bit of a rough time. We nearly died.”

Soma kicked at the crumpled yellow robe on the ground. “And it was this guy, right?”

Yoko nodded. “The King in Yellow. An Elder God, apparently.”

The man in yellow had seemed pretty nefarious at first glance, and it seemed Soma had been right to trust his gut. Soma wondered, though, why he hadn’t automatically claimed his soul upon killing him. Maybe he wasn’t a monster. Or maybe he wasn’t dead—if this man was some kind of Lovecraftian entity, then perhaps Soma had only defeated his corporeal avatar.

“He tried to kill us,” gasped Mina, breathlessly, “by making us read to death. Miss Yoko had to stop her heart, then set the room on fire.”

Soma wrinkled his brow, not fully parsing Mina’s breathless exclamations. “O-okay.” He took a seat on the dewy grass, pulling his unharmed white coat out of a backpack and draping it around Mina. “Miss Belnades, let me see your ankle.”

He checked the injury. It was a little sprain, with only some minor swelling. Soma put his hand over it and, using the soul he’d taken from the plant-woman he’d slain, healed her ankle with a magical green light from his palm. He did the same for the witch’s wrist. Although he could not mend bone, at least he could dull the pain. He’d only just gotten that soul, but taking it had given him an inherent sense of what it allowed him to do. It made sense, he decided, that the soul of a plant-creature would have healing properties; many medicines did, after all, come from the extremely diluted poisons of deadly plants. “Is this better?”

“A little,” Yoko admitted.

Soma conjured a javelin, broke off the sharp tip over his knee, and handed it to Yoko as a makeshift crutch to aid her while her ankle mended itself. “Good. So… are you hungry, or anything?”

Mina and Yoko exchanged glances.

“Yes.”

“Very yes.”

“Okay, well here’s this cool thing: So I was up there, and I ran into this skeleton in a suit. And he’d conjure these bowls of curry and throw them at me. I killed it and absorbed its soul, and now—” Soma closed his eyes, picked out the soul from his mind library, and willed a hot, steaming bowl of curry into his open hands. “Who says there’s no such thing as a free lunch?”

“C-can you repeat that?” asked Mina. “A-a bit slower? I think you just said you took someone’s soul.”

“I mean, it wasn’t ‘someone,’ it was an evil—skeleton—creature thing. I’ve never taken _someone’s_ soul.”

“Isn’t the Mount Ebott Prime Minister a skeleton?” Mina asked.

“This is _Dracula’s castle,_ Mina. Everything’s evil in here. That guy threw scalding curry at me.” Soma gestured at the sticky brown stain on the shoulder of his cloak, one of many mysterious and oddly-colored stains.

“You can’t just _take people’s souls!”_ Mina protested. She searched for the right word. “It’s, er—what’s the word?”

“Unhallowed?” Yoko suggested.

Mina nodded. “Yes! Unhallowed!”

“Okay, see, one, they aren’t people—I don’t know if I can even _do_ people, I’ve never killed a _person_ before, god help me if I ever do—and two, like I said, they’re evil,” said Soma, “so they’ll probably go straight to hell when they die. But if _I_ take their soul, they just go into me instead of going through all the fire and brimstone. I think getting stuck inside some guy is way less punishment than an eternity of torture, don’t you?”

Mina opened her mouth, made as if to say something, and then closed her mouth wordlessly, defeated by Soma’s completely flawless logic.

“So, you see,” said Soma, taking no small amount of pride in his feat of his mental gymnastics, “I’m doing these creatures a favor.”

“By slaughtering them? I don’t know…” Mina said, slowly, as if taking her time to ponder whether or not she did not, in fact, know while she was speaking.

“It’s self-defense,” Soma insisted. He offered her the curry. “Look. Mina, it’s even got a spoon and everything. It’s _soul food.”_

Yoko burst out laughing, the kind of laughing that eventually turns into coughing and crying, as Mina grabbed the bowl and began wolfing down the curry.

Soma noticed that one person in this grouping was conspicuously absent. A certain man whose presence itself was conspicuous, and his absence left a big, tall, spooky secret agent-shaped hole in the fabric of reality. “Hey, Yoko,” he asked. “Where’s Arikado—er, Alucard?”

“We got separated—let me try to call him.” Yoko put a finger to her throat. “Hello, Operator? Hi, Alphys. It’s me, Yoko. Can you patch me through to Alucard?” She frowned. “None of you? Well, can you try for me? Thanks.”

She waited for a while. “Hello, Alucard? It’s Yoko. Are you there?” She stayed silent for a few more seconds that seemed to stretch on forever. As she went on, notes of desperation crept into her voice. “Alucard? Answer me if you can. Alucard, come on _—”_

Soma couldn’t listen in on what Yoko was hearing on the other end, but he suspected he was already hearing the same thing she was.

Silence.

Yoko’s hand dropped from her throat, and her downcast eyes gazed forlornly at the grass, the dew-flecked blades nearly black in the moonlight. “It’s not like him to not answer his calls. He, um… he doesn’t really _get_ phones yet, so he always picks up.”

“I’m sorry.” If Soma hadn’t gotten lost, if he’d been faster—Whatever had happened to Alucard, he felt somewhat responsible. “He’ll be all right,” he reassured Yoko, trying to reassure himself as well. “You know, these communicators drop signals all the time.”

“Maybe he’s busy,” Mina suggested. “Try calling again later.”

“Yeah, Alucard’s a daywalker. He’s like a white Blade. He’s probably in a huge fight right now—that he’ll win, of course.” Soma offered the witch a bowl of curry. “Here. Eat up, and we’ll go looking for him.”

Soma’s ear began to buzz. He was getting a call. _Could it be from Alucard?_ He put his finger to the patch on his throat. “Soma here.”

The voice that answered was definitely not Alucard’s.

“ _Hey, kid, you all right?”_ Undyne asked, her voice crackling against a steady haze of white noise. _“Boss wants to know.”_

“Who, me? Yeah, I’m fine.” Soma wondered why Asriel hadn’t called him himself, considering how much he seemed to care about Soma’s safety. “Is your boss—”

“ _Oh, he’s right here. Hang on.”_

There was another burst of static, and then silence. Then, with another squeal in Soma’s ear, Asriel’s voice came through.

“ _Soma, it’s me. Sorry about that—I’m borrowing half of Undyne’s comm. You’re safe and sound, I take it?”_

“Yeah, I’ve been taking care of myself.”

“ _Did you stay put, like I told you?”_

Soma gulped. He had, in fact, done exactly the opposite, and somehow he felt almost _guilty_ about it.

Asriel didn’t wait for an answer. _“Don’t worry about it. As long as you’re safe.”_

“Uh, yeah. It, um, wasn’t safe where I was,” he lied.

“ _Oh, I’m so sorry, Soma. Just let Undyne and me know where you are and we’ll rendezvous.”_

“I’m in this… garden area. Mina and Yoko are with me. I rescued them,” Soma added, just a little proudly, as if to say, _See, I was right and you were wrong._

“ _Oh, that’s great! I’m so proud of you, Soma—I’m—meet up at the—front—see—”_

Static consumed the king’s voice, and with a sharp static squawk the communicator in Soma’s ear fell silent.

Soma wasn’t sure how to feel. The people Soma knew usually didn’t say they were _proud_ of him. “Well,” he said, collecting empty bowls from Yoko and Mina and tossing them aside, “let’s get going.”

–

As he watched the intruders scurry inside the castle, Graham pulled a silver hand mirror out of his suit, brushed a stray wisp of silvery hair away from his forehead, and traced a magic sign on its reflective surface. The mirror turned foggy for a few seconds, hiding Graham’s perfectly-composed face; the fog then cleared to reveal a pair of red-tinted glasses.

The person whose face those glasses were attached to was not happy at all to see Graham. _“You! Where the hell have you run off to, Jones? Where’s the_ _senator_ _?”_

“That’s none of your concern, King Crimson.” Graham peered over the mirror to watch the white-haired boy lead his two female companions back into the castle’s inner quarters. “Haven’t you gotten what you came here for already? What’s a doddering old narcissist and his entourage to you?”

“ _Doddering narcissist, eh? I’ll show_ you _who’s a doddering narcissist…”_

“Now, now… I have some rather urgent news for you. Unfortunately, you won’t like it.”

“ _I don’t like what you’ve told me so far.”_ King Crimson sighed. _“But what the hell, I won’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”_

“The wisdom of King Solomon has once again fallen short.” Graham eyed the dirty yellow cloak pooled on the grass. “I’m afraid your round table has yet another free seat.”

“ _Cut with the bullshit and get with the point.”_

“You’ve lost your King in Yellow.”

“ _Are you telling me…”_ King Crimson removed his glasses and sighed, his hand to his forehead. _“That a little homeschooled girl and a woman scarcely out of college, on their own, destroyed the avatar of a genuine unfathomable_ Elder God?”

“First off, Robert W. Chambers, not H.P. Lovecraft, wrote _The King in Yellow,”_ Graham lazily corrected him. “Lovecraft was a hack whose only virtue came from a select few ideas which his contemporaries later perfected. Second, no, the killing blow was in fact struck by a certain… Soma Cruz.”

If King Crimson had been angry before, at the mention of _that name_ he became apoplectic. _“What!?”_

“Oh, yes. _He’s_ along for the ride. And what’s more, he isn’t the _only_ friend Mr. Secret Agent Genya Arikado managed to drag along.”

“ _Son of a bitch.”_

“ _Manners,_ King Crimson. How unbecoming of royalty. Now, I have a message to give your master, and I would like you to pass it on.”

“ _What do I look like, a carrier pigeon?”_

Graham raised his eyebrows. “Would you like to be one? I’ll be able to arrange that for you soon enough.”

King Crimson groaned and rolled his eyes. _“_ _Just g_ _ive me the god damn message.”_

“Tch-tch-tch. Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain, my friend. Now… I want you to tell Solomon Graves, or whatever Mr. Barlowe’s whelp is calling himself now, in clear, plain English, that I am very, _very_ thankful for him for sending Alucard to Mount Ebott instead of the research station in Siberia as we had discussed. I am so happy that Ephram Barlowe’s decision to usurp me involved spitting in our collective faces and giving the only people on Earth capable of making our lives difficult the keys to the proverbial kingdom. You all have made things so, so much more interesting for us all. You have my _sincerest_ gratitude.”

Graham noticed his hands had started to shake during his tirade, and the face projected onto the pocket mirror clenched in his hand was starting to distort as the glass bent in his grip. He took a deep breath and composed himself. How unbecoming of a priest.

King Crimson had far lower standards for his own behavior. _“Oh, go find yourself an altar boy, you prick.”_ He then threw the mirror to the ground, and the last thing Graham saw through his own mirror was the sole of a boot before the glass fogged up and he found himself once again looking at his own beautiful face.

Graham pocketed the mirror and basked in the atmosphere of Dracula’s castle, letting the miasma carried on the air sink into his exposed skin and pervade his body. The situation was far from ideal, but oh, how wonderful it was to finally be here.

“ _You there. Put your hands above your head and turn around.”_

_Oh? It seems I’ve been found,_ Graham thought. He did so—

“ _Slowly!”_

Graham turned around—slowly—and found himself faced with a five-man firing squad. Well. That had been fast, hadn’t it? He couldn’t have gotten off the horn with King Crimson more than a minute ago.

One of the soldiers stepped forward. “Walk this way. Slowly.”

Graham did so, taking steady, deliberate steps toward the men, then stopped. “Sir, may I put my hands down? I’m afraid I have to take my handkerchief from my pocket…”

“No.” The leader walked over to him, rifle still held at the ready. Graham couldn’t wait to have the barrel of that gun pointing elsewhere. “I’ll get it for you.” The soldier stepped up to Graham’s side. “Which pocket?”

The other troops kept their guns trained on Graham’s chest. Were he to so much as sneeze he would instantly find himself no longer capable of breathing.

“Oh, the rightmost pocket. That’s it. What a gentleman you are.” Graham smiled faintly as the soldier handed him his violet handkerchief, and he made a show of carefully and deliberately mopping his brow, while his left hand brushed the soldier’s armored chest. “A man like you will certainly find lodging in the Kingdom of God.”

The soldier stepped back, dazed, and Graham’s smile turned beatific. “Now, my boy, can you do me another favor?”

The soldier nodded.

“I think you know what to do.” Graham pointed at the others, and the bewitched soldier whirled around, squeezed the trigger, and mowed down the men who just seconds ago had been his brothers-in-arms.

As the fallen soldiers’ blood pooled across the resplendent marble floors, Graham drew a line across his puppet’s back with his finger. The man instantly went limp and flopped to the floor, completely and utterly paralyzed from tip to toe except for his eyes, which whirled wildly in their sockets.

As Graham walked away, the soldier looked up at him with wide, pleading eyes: the only parts of his body he could still move. He would suffocate within minutes.

Some men of God had healing hands.

But Graham was a man of a _different_ god; _h_ _is_ were hands that harmed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STAND MASTER: GRAHAM JONES  
> STAND NAME: [MY SWEET LORD]


	20. The Gears Go Awry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, we find out what Alucard's been up to.

_The year was 2025. Alucard had woken up after twenty-six years of slumber to find a changed world… and a new job._

_Alucard looked at his face in the photograph captured by Solomon Graves’ “smart phone” (how a telephone could be “smart,” he doubted he’d_ ever _understand—he’d hardly gotten a grip on stupid phones in the first place). And he was horrified by what he saw._

“ _Not bad,” Solomon said, “for your first selfie.”_

“ _What… what in the devil’s name… is_ this?”

“ _A selfie? That’s a picture of yourself you take with your—”_

“ _No. Whose face is this?”_

“ _That’s your face.”_

“ _I_ know _my own face. This is not it.” The cheekbones and brow were right, but there was something off about the nose. And the eyes: entirely the wrong color. Skin—just a shade of sickly ashen, not pale alabaster. And the hair, as well—shorter, black as pitch and about as lustrous. “What is this sorcery?”_

“ _Employee binding spell,” Solomon explained, clearly bored out of his mind with his menial job._

Binding spell? _Alucard traced the seal tattooed over his heart. The ink was still fresh, and although his semi-vampiric constitution had allowed the skin to heal rapidly, the flesh was still sore and inflamed. So_ that _was what it was. He felt… violated. Branded like cattle. “I did not agree to_ this.”

 _Solomon_ _let out a bitter laugh_ _. “Welcome to_ _late capitalism_ _, buddy.”_

“ _You’ll get used to it,” Director_ _Barlowe_ _told him, his_ _tone of_ _voice_ _suggesting that Alucard was behaving like a brat_ _. “If you’d have cared to read the_ entire _contract, this glamour and the means by which it would be implemented were put forward quite clearly. It is simply a security matter, mind you.”_

“ _A security measure?” Alucard asked, skeptical. “Do you trust me so little?”_

_The director peered over Alucard’s coffin, running a finger over its dusty surface. “Come with me if you would, Mr. Alucard.”_

_Alucard followed the director out of his mausoleum and into a courtyard surrounded by all sides by a boxy glass-walled building. It was one of the most hideous_ _constructions he has ever seen, and with a sigh Alucard supposed he would never understand modern architecture._

_The director led him into the building, through hallways so bland and white the sight of them nearly bored Alucard to tears, and brought him to his office. Two adjacent walls, all glass from ceiling to floor, let sunlight stream into the room._

_Barlowe sat behind his desk and motioned for Alucard to take a seat across from him. Alucard did so, and noticed the Director’s desk. The wood was of exceptional quality, but the design was simple—no craftsmanship._

_Barlowe caught him observing the desk. “You like it? California redwood. It was almost as old as you.”_

“ _Actually,” Alucard confessed, “it looks to me a waste of fine wood.”_

_Barlowe laughed. “Oh, don’t tell me you’re still salty about our… terms and conditions.”_

“‘ _Salty?’”_

“ _I’m sorry. I suppose I shouldn’t use modern slang with you.” Barlowe steepled his fingers and observed Alucard through beady, squinted eyes set into his wrinkled, blade-thin face. “The world has changed since you were last awake.”_

“ _As it always does.” Alucard observed the picture frame propped up on the polished surface of the desk. To his surprise, the image within the frame transformed before his eyes, from a man who was obviously a much younger version of the Director and a woman who was likely his wife to a photo of a redheaded child standing atop a pristine white yacht, the ocean glittering blue-green behind him._

“ _Things have changed more than you can imagine,” Barlowe said. He took the screen of his computer—the design had changed so much since the 1990s that Alucard hadn’t even recognized it at first—and swiveled it so the monitor faced Alucard._

 _Alucard saw on the screen a moving image of_ _a family of monstrous creatures—two white-furred caprine beasts, one with a thick golden mane and both wearing sumptuous violet robes, dwarfing the humans alongside them. At their knees sat a younger, smaller beast of the same species, a black patch covering its left eye, and a human child._

“ _These are our new neighbors,” Barlowe explained. “This is the world you’ve woken up into, Alucard. Monsters… living openly among humans.” He hardly seemed pleased. “Of course, they seem quite peaceful, or so they insist, but…”_

 _Barlowe played another video, and Alucard saw the young beast-child_ _from the earlier image_ _locked_ _in combat, veiled by_ _rain and shrouded in golden fire, beset on all sides by enemies. The child’s technique was somewhat unpolished, but Alucard had to admit that he himself had been about that skilled at such a young age._

“ _This video was recorded only a few years ago. That… monster boy—he’s_ _in_ college _now, if you can believe that._ _You’ve done battle with monsters before, Alucard._ _Do_ _n’t_ _you agree,” asked Barlowe, “that_ this _could be a threat to humanity?”_

“ _Is one_ expected _to agree with one’s boss in this day and age?” Alucard asked. “Forgive me, Mr. Barlowe, but_ _I know so little of your twenty-first century customs.”_

“ _You don’t agree, then.”_

“ _You are speaking to what many would call a monster,” Alucard coolly retorted._

“ _You would agree, though, wouldn’t you, that anybody with such abilities must be constrained, at the very least, for the good of humanity.”_

“ _So this seal… it’s because you don’t_ trust _me.”_

“ _Well…”_ _B_ _arlowe shifted uncomfortably in his seat._ _“_ _It’s not so much a matter of_ trust _as, well…”_

“ _It certainly_ sounds _like a matter of trust.”_

“ _Alucard, we will be asking you to do many things for us as we await Dracula’s prophesied return. Clandestine operations. Ones which will require tact, finesse, and as little collateral damage as possible.”_

_Alucard peered at the still-playing video of the caprine beast-child fighting among its own kind. “Against monsters.”_

“ _Only if they pose a threat. Don’t take it personally, Alucard,” Barlowe insisted. “The seal keeps your dark powers from fully manifesting… and will keep those around you safe.”_

“ _None around me have ever had to worry about that_ before,” _Alucard insisted._

_B_ _arlowe stood up and looked out one of the windows, turning his back to Alucard. He motioned for Alucard to join him._

_Alucard stepped around the ugly desk and stared at the city skyline. Skyscrapers dominated, and the roads many stories below the office were more congested than ever. Video billboards lined the buildings, broadcasting advertisements to all who would see them,_ _and people clogged the sidewalks, walking past the ads as if they weren’t even there. Never had Alucard seen a city so teeming with life._

“ _T_ _imes have changed._ _Even in the twenty-six years since last you walked among the living, the world has gone through epochs._ _People live closer together than ever before, they take photos millions of other people can see in a span of minutes, and their lies spread around the world far swifter than the truth could even_ dream _of traveling. Privacy is a joke. Solitude is a myth. We must now be deeply concerned, Alucard, of what we do and how we behave.” Barlowe sighed. “I know it must be hard, Alucard, but this is for_ your _own good and ours.”_

 _Alucard ruminated on the Director’s words. It was true that he knew nothing about human civilization circa 2025. As loath as he was to admit it,_ _he had to accept for now that Director Barlowe and the Agency knew best… for now. “I understand now, sir.”_

 _Barlowe_ _went back to his desk and_ _turned the video off. Alucard noticed that the background of his computer screen was_ _an image of_ _the same redheaded boy from the photo on the Director’s desk,_ _albeit much older, now in his_ _late teens_ _._ _He_ _must have been Barlowe’s son._ _The boy_ _was posing next to a suit of armor. Apparently he’d taken a “selfie” of his own._ _Something about the boy seemed familiar to Alucard—like he’d seen him before._

“ _My son, Sol Barlowe,” the Director said, beaming with pride. “He’s an administrative technician here right now, but he hopes to be a field agent. Perhaps someday you and he will work together, Alucard.”_

“ _I_ _wi_ _ll be on my best behavior,” said Alucard, hoping to butter up the Director. He still couldn’t shake the feeling that his current predicament_ was, _in fact, a matter of trust._

Alucard struggled back to consciousness with great difficulty, and found himself sitting in a rough-hewn, uncomfortable wooden chair. No, not _sitting_ in it—he was _tied_ to it, with some sort of silvery cable. His hands were twisted behind the back of the chair and bound with, he assumed, the same type of cable, and his feet also tied together. The cable bit into his wrists and itched and stung madly, like poison ivy. The cut on his shoulder throbbed, and what little was left of the gouge on his torso pulsed with the beat of his heart.

A nasally, static-riddled voice cut through his ear. _“Alucard? Alucard, this is Doctor Alphys. M-Miss Yoko’s been t-trying to reach you. Are you okay, or—do you need help? Blink twice f-for yes, once for no—no, no, wait, I’m such a dummy, of course that wouldn’t work! Uh, hang in there, vampire man! We’ll come get you! Wherever you are!”_

He was still receiving messages through the device in his ear, but without his hands free, he could not respond. The signal cut out with an ear-splitting squeal of static, and Alucard sighed. It wasn’t like himself to give other people the option of worrying about him.

A man crouched down in front of him, hands planted on his knees. He wore a long, floor-sweeping black leather trench coat, and oil-slick sunglasses obscured his eyes. Solomon Graves. “The great Alucard, the prodigal son.” He reached out and clapped his hand on Alucard’s injured shoulder before moving his hand up, pulling out the caramel-colored plug set into Alucard’s ear and letting it fall, then crushing it on the floor under his heel like a cigarette butt. “Welcome home.”

Alucard took a look around the room. Sodium lamps cast strong, bright shadows from the walls, which were built from large, thick stone bricks. Steel doors with barred windows stood to Alucard’s left and right, and through the bars, Alucard could see massive gears turning. Rhythmic ticking and the constant hum of machinery echoed through the room.

“The clock tower. Really. Is this a message? Are you telling me I’ve run out of time?”

Solomon laughed. “Ah, there’s that deadpan acerbic wit.”

“Where are Miss Belnades and Miss Hakuba?”

Solomon’s face fell. “Oh. I… didn’t think you’d ask that so soon. You see, just after we knocked you out and dragged you up here…” He sighed, heavily and overly dramatic. “Something sparked a fire in the library. A torch fallen off its moorings, perhaps, we don’t know. It really is a shame that Dracula believed so strongly in keeping a strong Gothic aesthetic,” he said, gesturing to the lamps lining the walls. “He does have these fine sodium arc lights up here, after all.”

“Get to the point.”

He pulled off his glasses and closed his eyes, holding his hand to his heart. “The library went up like a tinderbox. Nobody could have survived.”

“No.” Alucard struggled with his bonds, to no avail.

“Oh, Alucard, if only you’d been stronger,” he drawled in that pompously over-affected British accent. “Strong enough to fight us off, strong enough to pull dearest Yoko and sweetest Mina out of that deathtrap. I bet it was that seal on your chest holding you back, right? You poor thing.”

Angered, Alucard tried to lash out, but only succeeded in making his chair wobble a bit. The cables around his wrists lacerated his skin, slicking his hands with blood. “You—”

Behind Alucard, another man began to laugh—King Crimson—as Alucard unloaded a litany of curses at him. Solomon shrugging off his barbed tongue as King Crimson took his place at his side.

The red-cloaked man had a smarmy grin as he lowered his glasses to peer over them at Alucard. “My, my, my, my, my. So defiant, Alucard.” He turned to Solomon. “May I?”

Solomon nodded.

King Crimson stepped closer and examined Alucard as if he were a rare jewel.

“May I have my sword back?” Alucard asked.

With the speed and fury of a rattlesnake, King Crimson’s hand lashed out. Fingers out like the blade of a knife, he jabbed Alucard in the chest, aiming directly for the tender, not-yet-healed flesh that had grown over the wound made by the Vampire Killer.

Alucard felt every particle of air driven from his lungs and every spark of energy drained from his muscles, and doubled over, only the cable tied around him holding him to the chair.

“There are strong people, and weak people, Alucard,” King Crimson explained, with the exhausted tone of a stern schoolmaster disciplining a perpetually-unruly student. “The strong exist to rule over the weak, and the weak only exist to be ruled over. Society has long since sought to overturn this simple rule of nature, resulting in the degenerate nations and peoples we see among us today. The strong become weak when they forget their natural place… as you have, my friend. Welcome to the weak, at long last. Get used to it.”

“I _am_ being tortured,” Alucard muttered, a sardonic, wheezing laugh forcing its way past his lips. “Lectured on philosophy by an oaf.”

King Crimson’s eyes flashed. “Excuse me?” He reached over, grabbed Alucard by the hair, and forced his head up. “I’m sorry, I didn’t quite catch that. Would you mind repeating yourself, loud enough for the whole class to hear?”

“ _If you are going to prattle on about the merits of_ _tyranny_ _,”_ Alucard hissed through gritted teeth as the overgrown brat tugged painfully on his scalp, _“then kindly cut off my ears, that I may not be forced to hear it!”_

He let go, letting Alucard’s neck flop backward. Alucard turned his gaze to the ceiling, thankful to be rid the sight of both his tormentors’ faces.

The back of King Crimson’s hand then smacked into Alucard’s cheek, whipping his head to the side and splitting his lip. Alucard was momentarily energized by the splash of blood running into his mouth, but it was short-lived, draining from his body as soon as it came over him, as if his bonds were pulling the life from him.

Of course—they must be made from some kind of silver or silver-alloy thread. They were interfering with his natural regenerative abilities.

“Prattle on!” Alucard taunted his torturer. “I’d love nothing more than to be bored to death by your juvenile excuses for philosophy.”

Solomon stood up, reapplying his glasses and running a black-gloved hand through his graying red hair, and changed tack. “King Crimson, that’s enough. I believe you have other duties to attend to.”

King Crimson deflated. “I haven’t even waterboarded him yet!”

“Don’t you have other matters to attend to, Gavin? For example, a little boy you and your pal Buck were supposed to dispose of?”

Defeated, King Crimson stomped off, leaving Alucard alone with King Solomon.

“I wish you could see yourself, Son of Dracula,” Solomon sighed, “you and the corpses we left of your friends. They’re dead because of _you,_ Alucard. I hope you know that. All of this is because of you. _Your_ fault. _Your_ weakness.”

Alucard cracked open his eyes as the pain searing into his face began to fade. “This was never about Dracula’s reincarnation, then… was it?” he asked. “None of you had any interest in claiming the throne room in the first place. All this betrayal. All the work you’ve done. Everything you’ve done with the Agency.” As he talked, the pain began to lessen, and fire began to flow through his veins. Not unholy vampire energies, though—just normal human anger. “The lives you’ve tried to tear apart. _All_ of it to lure me to you? You derailed an entire engine for _this?”_

Solomon laughed. “Oh, you’re only half-right.” He took the whip from his belt and ran his thumbs along its length. “Well—one-third, perhaps. None of us have any interest in claiming the throne room, it’s true. We’re here for the same reason _you_ are, or at least the same reason you _claim_ to be—to stop it from falling into the wrong hands.”

“Then we’re allies. So why do this?” Alucard asked.

“We are _not_ allies. The world deserves to be rid of monsters like you. _That,_ Alucard, is the Agency of Neo-Ecclesia’s creed, and I abide by that. But for me, though… this is about killing the man who killed my father.”

“ _I did n_ _ot_ _,”_ Alucard insisted.

A feral smile stretched the corners of Solomon’s mouth. “Deny your sins all you like. You know what you did.”

Alucard’s mouth filled up with blood, coppery and hot, and he spat a mouthful of it onto the floor. “Thank you for… enlightening me. I never knew what an incredibly short-sighted idiot you were until now.”

Solomon struck him across the face. Were his powers not being sapped from his body, Alucard barely would have felt it—but now, with himself reduced to _this,_ it stung.

Solomon knelt down, putting himself eye level with Alucard. There was so much anger in his face that he looked ready to have an aneurysm from sheer rage. A vein pulsed on his forehead. Alucard nearly expected it to burst. The deep crow’s-feet at the corners of his eyes crinkled. Alucard found himself at a loss to explain why his captor was aging so rapidly—unless…

“It is so satisfying,” Solomon told Alucard, “to _take_ from you.” His smile widened, and he leaned in closer, the stench of his hot breath in Alucard’s face, his fingernail scratching across the hangman’s-scar where the Vampire Killer had bitten Alucard’s flesh. The skin, tender and raw, sent screaming electrical signals across Alucard’s nervous system. He clenched his fists and gritted his teeth. “Friends. Family. Your powers. And I’ve even robbed you of the _face_ you were so proud of.”

Alucard was finally at a loss for words _._ No wonder Solomon had administered the sealing “treatments” to Alucard with such glee.

“And now you have nothing. Nothing but a miserable half-life as a disgusting half-breed half-vampire.”

Having nothing was not a new experience to Alucard. He’d lost his mother at a young age—burned at the stake as a witch—and lost his father—succumbed to vengeful, genocidal rage—soon afterward. He’d let friends pass him by time and time again, entombing himself for centuries lest he watch allies and trusted confidants alike—people like Trevor and Sypha, or Richter and Maria—grow gray and old before breathing their last breaths.

 _Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow_ _,_ _c_ _reeps in this petty pace from day to day._

But for centuries, Dracula had been eternal. Even when he had nobody but himself, the mission had always been there for Alucard, his stand against his progenitor, a blessing and a curse pushing him from day to day.

And now he didn’t even have that. As for his mission today, he had failed on all counts: to rescue Mina, let alone deal with Soma; to plumb the depths of the Agency’s motives; and to keep his promise to Julius.

_Julius._

The man who’d fought Dracula so young that he could only manage to grow a hideous peach-fuzz mustache, the man who had confessed to Alucard as they had forced their way into the castle that he’d never had the opportunity to lie with a woman (much to his shame; he was grateful that Alucard didn’t think less of him for it).

Wait a minute.

_Wait a minute._

“I’m not a cruel king, Alucard,” Solomon continued. Alucard only half-heard him. He was lost in thought.

_Each time I see him holding that whip, he seems older. His wrinkles are deeper. His hair is grayer._

“I’m not opposed to granting you clemency… and a quick, painless death. But on one condition.”

Alucard recalled John Morris, a man whose family had guarded the Vampire Killer in absentia while the Belmont clan had gone underground during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Alucard had spent most of those years in a state of torpor, sleeping a deathlike slumber in his coffin while the world passed him by. But he’d been sure to keep up-to-date on history on those rare occasions when he awoke.

John Morris had died from wielding the Vampire Killer. The whip, created through alchemy and blood, was tied exclusively to the Belmont family line, and would drain the life force from anyone not carrying the blood of a Belmont in their veins—

“I want you to cry, Alucard,” Solomon continued, standing up. “I want to see you weep for your so-called ‘friend’ and my father.”

_Solomon Belmont’s life is being sucked out of his body by that whip. And that can only be because…_

“For ten years, Alucard, all I’ve wanted was to see you on your knees with nothing, just as you left me. And I want you to prove to me that I have taken those things from you… once and for all.”

_He is not Julius’ son._

“What is this _really_ about?” Alucard asked.

Solomon blinked in befuddlement. “I just told you.”

“No. There’s more that you’re not telling me.”

The confusion did not leave Solomon’s face.

“Why are you pretending to be Julius’ son?” Alucard continued. “What is your _true_ purpose here?”

Solomon’s confusion transformed into rage. And there it was. Alucard had found Solomon’s insecurity. “‘Pretending?’” he snarled. _“‘Pretending?’”_ He drove his foot into Alucard’s chest, tipping his chair over and knocking him to the floor along with it. Alucard felt a painful jolt travel up his spine. _“I am Solomon Belmont, heir to the Belmont legacy, you swine!”_

He drove his booted foot into Alucard’s abdomen, knocking the wind out of him. Alucard spat out blood and bile.

“After everything I’ve gone through, you dare doubt my parentage? Demonic filth!” Solomon punctuated his every word with a stomp of his foot, and Alucard felt his ribs crack one by one. “You deserve to die as slowly and painfully as possible, you dirty, vile, monstrous, half-breed—”

A manic gleam flitted across Solomon’s eyes, and he clawed the silver cords away from Alucard’s body, freeing him from the chair. What relief Alucard felt as his bonds were loosened was short-lived.

“I’ve hated you,” Solomon snarled, “since I could _walk._ My first words were not ‘mama’ or ‘dada,’ but rather a curse against you! And you dare laugh in my face even when I have you at my mercy?”

Alucard suspected that Solomon was exaggerating.

Solomon dragged Alucard’s weakened and injured body across the floor, lifted him up—with some difficulty—and pushed the far door open.

Beyond it was a chasm filled with the turning and grinding gears that controlled the great clock tower that stretched into the sky above Dracula’s castle. The noise was deafening. Solomon held Alucard out beyond the two-foot metal balcony platform emerging from the stone wall by the collar of his ragged suit jacket over the sea of bustling machinery and let him dangle there. The teeth of the horrible machines waited impatiently for their next meal like those of a school of blood-crazed sharks in the water.

“ _Apologize,”_ Solomon shouted out over the dreadful din, _“and weep for me, Adrian Fahrenheit Tepes—”_ He spat out every syllable of the awful name Alucard’s father had given him, and they pounded into Alucard’s heart like silver nails— _“Or I will guarantee you have a closed casket funeral.”_

But freed from the silvery cords, Alucard was starting to feel his strength returning to him—or at least a fraction of it. Unfortunately, he was also beginning to slip out of his battered and torn jacket. He had a very small window to escape—if he even still could.

He kicked at Solomon, his heel colliding with the fraud’s kneecap. Solomon collapsed and Alucard fell; Alucard reached out and his aching fingers grasped the edge of the platform, sharp metal cutting shallowly into his finger’s inner joints. Alucard hauled himself up and ran as fast as the oxygen-starved muscles in his legs would allow him as the Vampire Killer let out a supersonic crack behind him and grazed his back.

“ _Alucard!”_

Alucard stumbled from the blow but kept running deeper into the machinery of the clock tower. There was a door up ahead which probably led to a far more easily navigable maintenance tunnel, but Alucard figured out upon trying to kick it open that had been locked, leaving only the perilous path through the tower’s grinding labyrinth.

Normally, Alucard would laugh at such a challenge. But he was weak, and right now any supernatural energies left running through his veins were busy knitting together his cracked ribs and various other injuries. To boot, now he was limping. He could still hardly see straight—and of course, this was _Dracula’s_ clock tower, which meant the clock tower was all exposed gears and unnecessary spikes jutting out of the floors and walls and other traps which proved nearly impossible to avoid.

He stumbled onto a steadily-spinning horizontal gear, struggling to keep the pace with it and avoid letting the vertical gear it intersected crush him into a red paste, and leaped onto a relatively stable ladder lining the stone wall. A pit of spikes lay at the bottom; he’d have to carefully time his jump to land on one of the makeshift platforms—other spinning gears. Hard to do even _with_ enhanced dhampyr reflexes.

“ _Alucard, you swine!”_ Alucard heard the whip crack in the distance. _“Come back here! No one but me can end your wretched life!”_

Alucard made the leap of faith, clinging precariously to the gear just beneath him. It continued to turn as he struggled to pull his legs free before the rotating platform could shear them off. As the teeth of the cog greedily grasped his pant leg, he pulled his leg up, leaving a scrap of fabric behind as a morsel for the machine.

He staggered to his feet, trying to ignore the aches and sharp, knife-like pains jabbing through every inch of his body. It was hard to stand, but he had nothing to lean on: everything in the clock tower was in constant motion, and standing still for even a second risked certain death.

Solomon leaped down after Alucard. His whip lashed out, and Alucard threw up his arm to block it. It cut all the way down to the bone. The turning gear brought the deranged so-called Belmont closer, and in close quarters, he threw a punch that only narrowly missed Alucard. He then struck with the knotted but of the whip, hitting Alucard in the forehead and drawing blood. Alucard’s sight left him for a second that felt like an eternity as he reeled back.

Wiping the blood from his eyes as the world faded back in around him, Alucard glanced downward and saw, in the gaps between the machinery, disembodied reptilian heads floating lazily through the air, snakes trailing from their scalps. Flying heads born of the legendary Greek monster, Medusa. A staple of Dracula’s clock tower—Alucard remembered them well, especially what an annoyance they were. One touch from them would…

One of Solomon’s soldiers down below tripped on the machinery and fell into the path of a wandering Medusa head, and was turned to stone, instantly, without even a chance to cry out. The immobile statue continued its downward descent and was dashed upon the gears and cogs, reduced to pebbles and dust.

Alucard had an idea now.

Solomon caught Alucard across the chest with the whip again, throwing him back. Alucard felt his back collide with a swiftly-moving vertical cog and was lifted up off his feet by the quick ascent of its teeth. In a matter of seconds he’d collide with the gear just above him—and there would be no coming back from that.

Alucard managed to push himself off just before his head was crushed to a pulp, but the searing pain running up his spine told him clearly enough that he’d caused grievous injury to his back. Were he free to use all of his powers the vertebrae he’d misaligned would have immediately popped back into place. As he was now, who knew how long they would take to heal?

Alucard needed blood. Badly.

Solomon lunged at him again, and Alucard caught him by the arm and threw him down. Solomon fell through the empty space littering the machinery but, with his left hand flailing out, he managed to grasp a steel pole, and hung just inches above a sea of gnashing metal teeth. He thrashed his whip, curling its tip around the pole, and began to climb up.

As he climbed, one of the Medusa heads sailed by and brushed Solomon’s arm, instantly turning it to stone—and brittle stone at that, far too weak to hold the rest of his weight. His stone elbow crumbled, and Solomon fell, held up only by the length of the whip he’d stolen, feet kicking only inches from machinery threatening to oil the clock tower with blood.

His eyes were hidden by his ridiculous sunglasses, but Solomon’s furious eyebrows showed more than enough emotion to make up for it. If looks could kill, this was a look that could commit genocide.

“ _ALUCARD!!!”_ he roared in impotent rage.

Alucard left Solomon hanging there disarmed and pulled himself down the clock tower, each move deliberate and painful. When he finally set foot on solid stone, it was all he could do to avoid passing out.

Alucard fell to the floor. He couldn’t move another inch. It wasn’t just his injuries—he wasn’t sure why he should keep walking forward. What was left for him to do here? Was there any point in going on?

Solomon screamed in the distance, and Alucard felt a strong hand fall on his shoulder and pull him through the tower. _This is it,_ he thought as the room spun around him and faded in and out of focus.

“ _You all right there, buddy?”_

Alucard looked up, his mind still muddled. His vision blurred and doubled, and for a handful of seconds he saw his savior split in two. As the man’s blurry figure underwent mitosis, Alucard thought he saw two men before him, two ghosts from the past. _Trevor…? Richter…?_

_Belmont._

Alucard held out his hand, but the phantoms only retreated farther away as he extended his reach.

The visions of his past allies vanished into darkness. The pain was too much. Alucard welcomed blissful oblivion.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's just not a real Metal Gear Solid homage without a torture scene.
> 
> Good news, everyone! The next chapter has Asriel in it!


	21. Festival of Servants

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Asriel makes a new friend and gets to cut loose.

The twisting waterways beneath Dracula’s castle soon gave way to ragged, makeshift tunnels braced with rickety wooden supports. The lower levels were flooded with still and brackish water, but off in the distance, the rushing of water from the gurgling canals could still be heard. Tiny imps carrying torches flitted through the tunnels, leaving little blue wisps of flame floating in the air.

Undyne gingerly stepped around the floating flames, but Asriel simply swatted them to the side, his hand wreathed in a thin yet protective barrier of gold fire. Fire was an element his family line was naturally drawn to: his mother and father had both mastered fire magic, and Asriel liked to think that (with Undyne’s tutoring) he’d refined that mastery into an art form.

Asriel wondered if these tunnels were at all connected to the one he and Soma had traveled through earlier. If so, there might be another one of those claw-headed crab creatures… and he would not relish the thought of fighting another one of those things (although surely he and Undyne together could handle it).

Undyne passed by a bioluminescent toadstool nearly as tall as she was. It glowed with a pasty, phantasmal blue light. She poked its cap and dusty spores coughed from its underside, lighting up the ground with the same eerie glow. She sighed. “Almost like I’m home again.”

It _did_ look a lot like Waterfall from back home, Asriel realized. In their childhood, he and Chara had spent hours exploring the gloomy caverns, picking out constellations in the diamond dust covering the ceilings, racing snails, rafting down rivers guided by the lights of glowing moss and shimmering crystal lanterns. They’d barely gotten away with their recklessness.

And, of course, it had been in Waterfall that Chara had found _the door,_ and had let Zero into the world—ushering in a nightmare Asriel sometimes still felt he had yet to wake up from.

A beam of light sliced through the tunnel; at a junction up ahead, Asriel could hear muttering and clomping footsteps from a troop of Green Dolphin soldiers making their way through the mines. He and Undyne pressed themselves against the walls as the searching spotlight from one of the mercenaries’ rifle-mounted flashlights scanned the rock and cast deep, rough shadows.

“ _No sign of the senator here. Sweeping sector twenty-one next.”_

As the soldiers stood and consulted their maps, Undyne crept toward them, staying close to the wall, and yanked one into the tunnel. A jolt of electricity ran through the unfortunate victim’s arm, just enough to instantly knock him out.

The soldiers leaped into action, but not quickly enough. With a magnetic tug, Undyne tore their guns from their hands and let them sail down the tunnel and clatter into a shallow pool of water with a splash; a deftly-executed spinning kick and a flurry of lightning spears took care of the rest.

Undyne then ransacked one of the Green Dolphin soldiers’ bodies, stripping him down to his underwear. She tossed a liberated carbon fiber vest over to Asriel. “Don’t let your mom know I let you get this far without protection,” she said.

Asriel caught the vest and looked the sleek black fabric over. In the flickering firelight, he could clearly see an old Alphadyne Armors logo, about five years out of date—the winking cartoon Alphys stenciled on the armor had long ago been replaced with a more inscrutable abstract design—with a disclaimer that said “NOT INTENDED FOR MILITARY OR PARAMILITARY USE—YES, THAT MEANS YOU.”

Well, so much for _that._ Alphys would be pissed.

Asriel unbuttoned his shirt, which he’d nearly gotten dry, and slipped on the torso armor, letting the once-white button down shirt hang loosely and untucked like a jacket over it. “Thanks, Cap.”

Undyne, who wore her armored vest like a tank top, approved of Asriel’s fashion choice. She rifled through the rest of the downed soldiers’ belongings until she found the map they’d been consulting.

She and Asriel looked the map over. When unfurled, it was nearly poster-sized, and the details were so tiny they were nearly impossible to make out. But with some squinting, Undyne and Asriel—with two eyes between the two of them—could tell where they were.

“If Chara got lost down here, they might have gone further down. That could lead them here,” Asriel said, jabbing at the area located just below the aqueducts labeled “Arena.” While there was no path leading directly from the canals to the arena, the mines he and Undyne were standing in right now wrapped around it and cradled it like the fingers of a misshapen hand—or the tentacles of a great kraken. If Chara had continued down through the aqueducts, they might have gone through the mines and ended up in the arena.

Undyne pointed to another portion of the map. “Or here—the canals run right under it.” Asriel followed her finger. The library. “Or they could have come out in the gardens, around here.”

Asriel sighed. It was hopeless. They could be anywhere. “Undyne, will you please call them and see how they’re doing?”

With only a little recalcitrance, Undyne did so this time. “They say they don’t know. They’re surrounded by monsters, but they think they have the situation under control now.” She frowned. “I can hear chanting in the background.”

Asriel could hear it too—off in the distance. The rhythmic, far-off sound of many voices shouting in unison. “There they are!”

“We’re coming to get you, Chara.” Undyne spoke through the communicator.

“ _Say something nice to them,”_ Asriel urged her.

Undyne rolled her eye, but acquiesced. “Chara, when we get back to Earth, uh… let’s watch the new _Neon Blood Girls_ OVA together! See ya!” She hung up as quickly as possible.

Undyne took off in the direction of the noise, and Asriel trailed behind her. “What’s _Neon Blood Girls?”_ he asked.

“It’s a really cool series about magical girls who are also werewolves. Kind of a Sailor Moon meets Wolf’s Rain thing. Alphys and I are totally into it. You’d know if you weren’t too busy holed up in Parliament to watch anime with your friends. You know, like a _normal_ person.”

Asriel and Undyne soon found the source of the chanting, and it wasn’t at all what they’d expected.

At the bottom of a massive central mineshaft sat what could only be described as a shantytown, a collection of ramshackle homes built from driftwood and other debris and scattered across the floor. They were like little hobbit-holes, only made out of garbage.

In the “town square” stood a mass of monsters—skeletons, gargoyles, hunched-over gremlins, fishmen, piles of living slime and moss. A dryad with the torso and head of a quite buxom human woman and limbs of crooked, knotted wood paced to and fro in front of the crowd, nervously playing with her long, cherry blossom pink tresses with gnarled oaken fingers and leaving bits of bark in her hair.

“Okay,” she called out to the crowd. “Let’s take this from the top.” She took a deep breath, composed herself, and faced the mass of monsters staring out at her. _“What do we want?”_ she shouted out.

“ _Eight-hour work days!”_ the monsters cried in unison.

“ _When do we want it?”_

“ _Eight-hour work days!”_ the monsters cried in unison.

“No, no, _no!”_ The dryad tore at her hair. “When I say _‘when do we want it,’_ you say, _‘now!’”_

“Oh,” one of the monsters said.

“That makes sense,” another monster said.

“ _What do we want?”_ she shouted out.

“ _Now!”_ the monsters called back triumphantly.

Asriel and Undyne examined the farce from afar. “What are they doing?” Undyne asked.

“Looks like they’re… going on strike,” said Asriel. Seeing the monsters behaving so much like his own people, Asriel suddenly felt very guilty about how he and Undyne had fought those skeletons earlier. Unless they really _had_ been feral, as Asriel had thought.

The dryad facing the crowd sighed and threw up her hands in the universal gesture of “I give up.” “Okay,” she said, “all of you, break up into small groups and practice among yourselves for a bit.” With that, she spun on her heel and walked off.

And then she caught sight of the two guests, stopping in her tracks.

Undyne tensed up, preparing for a fight, but Asriel let his muscles relax. “Hi,” he said.

“Hi,” the dryad said back. “Are you two here for the, um,” she stammered as she brushed her hair out of her face. “Um… You must be the strikebreakers. The Sovereign warned us there’d be monsters like you. Well, do what you will, you imperialist, capitalist pigs,” she said, standing up tall despite the nervous half-smile-half-rictus on her face. “Not like we could really get anything off the ground anyway.”

Asriel nudged Undyne in the stomach and hissed at her to relax. She did so. “Quite the opposite, actually,” he said. “My name is Asriel, and this is Undyne. Now, have you seen a human about yea high—”

The dryad’s face lit up. “You’re here to join us?”

“Um,” said Undyne.

“Yes,” said Asriel. “But can you tell me if you’ve seen—”

“Thank you so much, my comrades!” She shook Asriel’s hand with both of hers, bringing with her rough, bark-lined hands the kind of enthusiastic grip he’d not felt in a handshake for years. “To tell you the truth, I’m having so much trouble with these boys (their heart’s in it, you know, but…), and I don’t want to go back to the Sovereign and tell them it didn’t work out, they’d be ever so cross, and they’d say to me, ‘Willowrot, I’m ever so cross,’ and—”

“Miss Willowrot(?), I would be honored to march with you,” Asriel began, “but first, I’m looking for a human friend of mine who’s gotten lost, and I was wondering—”

Willowrot shivered and curled up as if her body were filled with springs. “Oh, I won’t disappoint them at all, the Sovereign is going to be so, so— _appointed!”_

“Who’s the Sovereign?” Undyne asked.

“Oh, they’re the beautiful young thing who’s inspired us to demand our rights as servants from our masters! You really must meet them—we’ve _never_ had a leader who treats us the way they do!” Willowrot dragged Asriel over to the crowd. “My name is Willowrot, by the way. You’re not from around here, are you?”

“No, Willowrot,” Asriel responded, “and excuse me, but I just have a simple question—”

“I always _knew_ things didn’t have to be this way, you know,” Willowrot babbled. “Ever since I was a sprout (I was spawned after Dracula died, by the way). Never made sense to me that we just kept doing things _his_ way, you see? Made me a little unpopular with the upper crust, but _now_ who’s on top? And see, I was right all along! I was so, so excited, I ran all the way down here to tell everyone the good news!”

Undyne spoke up. “Uh, it’s great getting to know you, honey, but we—”

“Are you any good at chanting?” Willowrot asked, still running her mouth at a mile a minute. “These miners, bless their hearts, they just don’t _get_ it, I think if only the Sovereign would come down here, if we could all just hear their voice they’d all _really_ get it, they never listened to _me_ _…”_

“So the Sovereign is the new master of this castle?” Undyne asked as Willowrot babbled on.

“Oh, no, not _officially,_ no. Not yet, anyway.” Willowrot positioned Asriel front and center in the crowd of striking monsters. “But they _must_ be! We need a new Dracula for a new age!” She clapped Asriel on the shoulder and took her position before the crowd. _“What do we want?”_

“ _Eight-hour work days!”_ the monsters cried in unison, with Asriel leading the chant. The attitude from the crowd was infectious. He felt so… _empowered._ Of course, as royalty, he was _always_ empowered, but _this_ was different.

“ _When do we want it?”_

“ _NOW!”_

Willowrot pulled Undyne into the crowd, positioning her next to a dripping merman. He eyed her amorously.

“I’ve already got a wife,” Undyne warned him.

“ _One, two three, four, we want to work for something more!”_ Willowrot shouted.

“ _Two, four, six, eight, labor is entitled to all it creates!”_ the others shouted back.

It was charming to watch—and once again, Asriel was reminded of home. Who knew that Dracula’s castle could be such a familiar-feeling place?

The chanting kept going. _“I don’t know but I’ve been told! We deserve more shares of gold!”_

“The boss is a bigger threat to our lives than the Belmont clan!” Willowrot called out over the crowd as a massive, devilish-looking demon emerged from one of the mine tunnels behind her. “What do we need?”

The strikers fell silent as the winged, muscular creature loomed over Willowrot, its oily red skin glistening in the dim light from lanterns and torches, crossing his muscular arms and hovering just a few inches above the ground with big, leathery wings.

Asriel raised his voice. “Um, Willowrot, I think—”

“No, no, you’re supposed to shout, _‘dental plan,’”_ she coached the crowd. “Because it rhymes with _‘Belmont clan,’_ see? I-I know, it’s a bit of a stretch… but we can’t be too clever! We have to look at this from the foreman’s perspective!” She flung out her arms as a few of the monsters standing in the crowd frantically made “cut if off” gestures with whatever appendages they had available to them. “He’s an idiot!”

The demon flung out a clawed arm and a burst of flame blossomed from it. Asriel instinctively ducked as a wave of fire passed by overhead. Any monster unlucky enough to be more than four feet tall—and without the good sense to duck—was killed instantly, the charred remnants of their heads fluttering in the air.

Asriel poked his head up and looked around at the devastation. Some of the little huts had begun to smolder, and scattered workers across the town square clung to the ground in a daze. Undyne had had the good sense to duck as well, but the fishman she’d been positioned next to hadn’t been so lucky.

“ _You all right, Undyne?”_ he hissed as she grumbled and rose to her feet.

Undyne pulled her slightly-singed auburn hair back and wiped the soot from her scales. “Fine. And you?”

“I’ve been worse.”

The demon floating behind the dryad glared and bared his teeth, sending all of the surviving monsters off screaming. With a sweep of his mighty hand he grabbed Willowrot by the waist and pulled her up into the air. He wrinkled his nose. _“An idiot, am I?”_ he asked, lips curling over gangrenous gums.

“Please don’t take it personally,” the dryad squealed, stumbling over her words in panic.

“You’ve all gone soft!” the flame demon addressed the survivors. “All this garbage about eight-hour shifts and health benefits. You’re _monsters,_ for devils’ sakes! _This_ is what Dracula’s castle is like—and you’d all better get _used_ to it!”

He held Willowrot aloft, taking one of her wooden limbs in his free hand and pinching it between his thumb and forefinger. “You’ve had this a long time coming, you insolent weed!”

“ _Get your claws off her_ _!”_ Asriel shouted out, standing tall amid the ashes.

And with not a care for the whimpering of the monster-woman in his grasp, he snapped her arm like a twig, exposing pale sapwood flesh and heartwood bone curling away from splintered bark.

The flame demon moved his hand to Willowrot’s neck next, but stopped as a peal of thunder and crack of lightning split the cavern.

“You got wax in your ears or something?” Undyne snarled, lightning forming into a crackling glaive at her side. “He _said,_ ‘get your claws off her!’”

The flame demon foreman took notice of the two of them. “Who are _you?”_

“ _Undyne, I’ll take care of this._ Demon, I challenge you to trial by combat.” Asriel stepped forward and glared up at the demon. “Win, and do what you like with us. Lose, and you release Miss Willowrot—alive—and agree to _all_ of our demands.”

The foreman looked down at Asriel and grinned with rotting fangs, letting his dryad prisoner dangle limply from his grip and drop to the ground. “Give me your best shot, bleating lamb.”

Asriel conjured an orb of golden fire— _This should be more than enough for a bullying pushover like him,_ he thought, not even using a fraction of his strength, just enough to humiliate the demonic foreman—and let it fly. This fight was already over.

The fireball hit the flame demon in the face, and the blooming flames slid around his grotesque mug and curled over his twisted horns like water off a raincoat.

The foreman let out a derisive laugh. “Foolish whelp! Fire cannot harm a demon!” He threw out his massive hand and conjured a column of red-orange flame that completely engulfed Asriel, producing an inferno that would char any living creature to a crisp. “As for _you…!”_

After a solid minute of scorching heat, the column of fire dissipated into a twisting helix of thin fiery whips, and then into a cloud of sparks and embers. It left a black and smoking scar on the ground that stretched all the way to the edge of the shaft.

And Asriel stood amid the scorched rock, hand outstretched, the edges of his clothes only slightly singed. Steam curled up from Asriel’s collar, and a thin cloak of shimmering, translucent golden fire shifted around him like an oil slick in the air before fading away.

The demonic foreman reared back in shock.

“An old saying comes to mind,” Asriel said, a confident smirk on his face. “About what fire can’t kill.”

“ _Hell yeah, Asriel!”_ Undyne shouted, pumping her fist. _“Kick his ass!”_

The flame demon let himself float down to the ground, cracking his knuckles, his neck, and the wings sprouting from his shoulder blades. He was easily twice as tall as Asriel, although very little of that height came from his disproportionately spindly legs. This was a demon who’d never been warned about skipping leg day. “A simple trick. It will be your last. I, Noxifer the Flame Archdemon, will teach you the meaning of respect!”

Noxifer moved faster than Asriel expected—he felt a mighty punch sail past his ear and shatter the ground where he had been standing only a second ago. The flame demon followed up the punch with a sweeping kick, yellowed and ichor-stained toe-talons scratching Asriel’s armor and leaving exposed silvery connective tissue beneath the black carbon-fiber coating.

Asriel conjured a spear in his hand and raked it across Noxifer’s knuckles as another punch came his way. The demon was resilient to all fire, it seemed, even the bladed weapons Asriel could conjure: the attack barely left so much as a bruise.

Noxifer’s second punch grazed the side of Asriel’s head and sent him reeling backward, the mineshaft spinning around Asriel as he stumbled backward. Before he could regain his footing, Noxifer had caught his shoulders in the talons of his feet and, with a mighty flap of his wings, lifted the king into the air.

Noxifer swooped up, letting Asriel dangle from his clutches as the ground spiraled further and further away with each pulsing flap of the flame demon’s great wings. “You’ve got a swelled head, lamb,” Noxifer taunted Asriel. “But don’t worry. Dashing it against the rocks will relieve that pressure!”

Asriel shook the wave of nausea and disorientation from his head, grabbed Noxifer’s ankles, and pulled himself out of his opponent’s grasp, the talons tearing through his shirt and drawing blood. Below him, the bottom of the mine shaft began to fade into darkness, leaving nothing but an empty black hole for him to fall into.

Swinging himself up, Asriel slammed his foot into Noxifer’s nose. Greenish-black blood spurted from the foreman’s nostrils and coated the loafers he’d already ruined wading through sewage; demon and monster alike began to plummet to the ground.

“The only one with any hubris around here is _you,_ Noxious!” Asriel shouted out as the momentum threw him into the air. He landed on Noxifer’s back, grabbed his wings at the base where they connected to his flexing shoulderblades, and wrenched them around, piloting Noxifer and forcing him to pitch upward. Asriel kept pulling as the side of the mineshaft rushed forward to meet his unwilling living glider, wind whistling through his ears.

As the demon crumpled against the rock wall, Asriel yanked on the wings one more time and dislocated them from Noxifer’s shoulders, both limbs coming free with a sickly _pop._ And as the beastly demon plummeted to the ground, screaming all the while, Asriel rode him all the way down.

The instant Noxifer slammed into the rocks below, Asriel leaped off his back and sailed through the air, righting himself with a deftly-executed backflip. He landed on his feet like an Olympic gymnast, flinging his arms out triumphantly—his shoulders _hurt_ , and Asriel wondered if Noxifer’s claws had torn any ligaments—while the scattered monsters cheered. He took a bow, then turned to the cloud of dust marking where Noxifer had fallen.

“I fought a demon once before, Noxious, and you are _nothing_ compared to them!” he taunted.

Noxifer stumbled out of the cloud of debris, dragging his wings behind him as they drooped sadly from his back. “Who in Dracula’s name _are_ you?” Most of the teeth had been wrenched out of his mouth by the force of the impact, and both of his twisted horns had been shorn off.

“King Asriel Dreemurr, son of Asgore Dreemurr, Inheritor of the Delta Rune, Angel of the Underworld.” Asriel took a boxing stance. This was _fun._ He hadn’t felt more alive in _years._ “Do you yield, Noxious?”

“Do I yield?” Noxifer spat out the shattered remains of a moss-green fang. “Do I _yield?”_

“Do you want me to answer that question for you?” Asriel asked as he cocked his head. “Because _my_ answer would be ‘yes.’”

Asriel dodged Noxifer’s next two punches—the demon foreman was angry, and that made him wasteful and inaccurate. While Noxifer blundered around, Asriel got a hit on what on any other humanoid would be a pressure point at the base of the neck. It was on this creature too, and Noxifer was down for the count.

But he regained his bearings quickly, and facing an embarrassing defeat, Noxifer beat a hasty retreat, lobbing fireballs at Asriel to let him know the fight wasn’t over yet. With Asriel in pursuit, Noxifer clasped his claws around Willowrot’s neck, her hair cascading over his knobbly knuckles. “Yield,” he said, panting, “or I burn her.”

Asriel stopped in his tracks. “Th— _th_ _at_ _isn’t fair_ _, Noxifer!”_

Noxifer laughed. “You don’t honestly _believe_ any of that nonsense about fair and honorable duels, do you?”

While he threw back his head with laughter, a salvo of lightning spears hit Noxifer’s chest, knocking him off his feet. The captive dryad slipped out of his hand as he flew backward.

 _Undyne!_ Normally Asriel would have been upset that she’d interfered in what should have been honorable single combat. But he’d been on the back foot, so he welcomed anything that would change the tide in his favor. Besides, Noxifer had already broken the rules. Everything was fair game now.

Asriel stepped between Noxifer and Willowrot as the demon groaned and staggered to his feet, his gleaming pectorals smoking but unmarred. “Undyne, look after Miss Willowrot for me.” He cracked his knuckles. “I’m finishing this.”

Noxifer roared and threw a haymaker at Asriel; he dodged it, but only barely, and the tip of the demon’s knuckles stung Asriel’s nose (and in more ways than one—this creature _reeked)._ While Asriel was on the back foot, Noxifer followed up his wild swing by blowing a gout of fire at him from his mouth. It happened too fast; no time to dodge, nor to bring up a protective shield. Asriel took the full force of the blast, only managing to barely fling his arms over his face, and fell backward, his sleeves lit up with flames.

Noxifer’s second punch landed in Asriel’s gut, lifting him up off his feet and throwing him clear across the town square. By the time Asriel hit the ground, Noxifer had already cleared the distance between the two of them. He stamped down on Asriel’s arm, sending a jolt of pain through the bone itself.

This was the same arm that Asriel had broken all those years ago in his fight with Zero atop the Arsenal of Heaven; although it had been over a decade since then, the arm still ached on cold and windy nights. It hurt almost as bad now as it had then. It was all Asriel could do to keep from screaming.

Noxifer’s fist lit up as red-orange fire curled around it. “Yield,” he growled, “or I’ll make roast mutton out of you.”

Asriel gritted his teeth. _“You first.”_

“I don’t think you get the balance of power here, lamb chop.” Noxifer licked his lips with a long, green tongue. “You can’t imagine how long it’s been since we’ve had fresh meat down here…”

Asriel wasn’t much for low blows, but if ever there was a place for them, it was here. He drove his foot right into Noxifer’s groin, protected only by a loincloth, and the demon’s eyes rolled up as he gasped with a strangled and pinched voice and stumbled backward.

With his enemy on the ropes, but still a threat, Asriel pulled himself up and called on a power he hadn’t used in years.

Powerful monsters of Mount Ebott who’d honed their bodies and minds could develop magical abilities totally unique to themselves: abilities that were, in purest terms, the light of their souls—an ultimate expression of their selves. Asriel’s allowed him to tap into his own soul, or the souls of others. It had taken him a long time to discover the extent of this ability, but once he had, he was finally able to name it.

A golden light surrounded Asriel’s body, not a cloak of fire, but like the light from thousands of fireflies, like the light of cities at night seen from space.

_Aura regia._

Noxifer bellowed and charged Asriel, both clenched fists wreathed in flames. Asriel ducked under the demon’s double-fisted rush and placed his open palm on Noxifer’s chest.

The world went dark, and Asriel could only see his own body and Noxifer’s soul, a gray-green orb coated with an unctuous oil-slick film. He clasped his hand around the orb and let the golden light wash through it, melting the shimmering film away.

Asriel slipped beside Noxifer’s body, and as Noxifer kept charging forward, the flames around his fists died out. He came to a stop, staring at disbelief at his own hands as he swept them through the air, fire flashing between his fingers and curling around his knuckles for but a brief instant before fading away. It was like watching someone flip a lighter over and over again, but never getting it to stay lit. Now horrified, Noxifer let out a belch of fire, but barely a flurry of sparks coughed out of his mouth.

He fell to his hands and knees and vomited, loosing a torrent of steaming sludge onto the scorched rock. “What did you do? _What did you do?”_

Asriel staggered, but remained upright. His entire body felt shriveled up; weariness sunk into every cell, every hair on his body. Using _aura regia_ always took a lot out of him—it was always only a last-ditch move. And he hadn’t used it in a long time. “ I took it from you. Your magic… _all_ of it.”

“You can’t—”

“I did.”

It was a lie. _Aura regia_ did not rob an individual of their magic—what it did was change the nature of their soul, and thus the nature of their magic. But for a brief period—anywhere from as short as a few minutes to as long as several hours—the target would be left with _nothing._

At the very least, now the overgrown bully knew what it was like to be _weak._

“You could have fought fairly,” Asriel said, taking slow, halting steps toward the demon. “Never mind fighting fairly, you could have just _listened._ But you had to do things your way. And this is where it gets you: weaker, more powerless than the monsters you sought to oppress.” A weary smile crossed his face as he twisted the proverbial knife. “How does it—”

 _You know what you have to do now, though,_ a high-pitched voice whispered in Asriel’s ear. It was a voice he hadn’t heard in well over a decade, a voice he thought he’d rid himself of. His breath left him, and he found his lungs paralyzed. _You made your bed; now you’ve got to lie in it. If you let him live, he’ll come back stronger._

There was a consequence to living so long without a soul, as Asriel had done before Frisk had brought him back all those years ago. A darkness inside him, something that had driven him to do terrible things, something he thought he’d conquered… and here it was. Back inside his head.

_Kill him._

_I can’t,_ he said.

 _You_ can.

 _I’m not that kind of monster,_ he said.

 _You_ are. _You always_ have _been. Did you think that part of you was_ dead?

Noxifer stood up, enraged, drawing his arm back to deliver a knockout punch—

And a long sword pierced the back of his neck, the end of the blade shooting from out of his mouth. The lifeless body toppled over, revealing a trio of gremlins behind him perched one atop the other, with the one on top wielding the sword with shaking, feeble arms.

The monsters of Dracula’s mines looked on in awed silence as Undyne helped Asriel remain standing. “And that,” she announced to the crowd, “is how you solve a labor dispute!”

“Please don’t let this start a precedent,” Asriel added as he rediscovered his legs. “It’s always better to talk things out. Thank you, Undyne. You’re a lifesaver.”

She shrugged. “It’s a living!”

“Who do we kill next?” one of the monsters called out to raucous applause from its peers.

Willowrot rushed to Asriel, and wrapped him in a bone-crushing embrace despite the wooden arm dangling in splinters at her side. Asriel’s nose was filled with the scent of budding leaves in springtime as the dryad held him uncomfortably close to her bosom. “You have our eternal gratitude, sir!” she cried out. “What an incredible monster you are! Of course, I _knew_ you were incredible right from the start, Mr. Asriel, sir, but the way you stood up to Mr. Noxifer— Those punches! That _kick!_ You must be… the bravest monster I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

“No, no, please.” Asriel tried to free himself, mildly disconcerted by the ravenous—but not quite _hungry—_ look in the tree-woman’s violet eyes. “B-bravery, well, it simply had nothing to do with it—my good woman.”

“And so _modest,_ too…” Willowrot fawned.

“Far from it,” he said, his armored vest suddenly feeling hot and stifling across his chest. “There was never a doubt in my mind that I’d come out on top.”

“You’re incredible! Oh, you’re _just_ what this castle needs right now, sir (and quite easy on the eyes to boot, if you know what I mean, sir). If only I were as strong and brave as the likes of you…”

“Well, actually,” Asriel said, fumbling with his words as they left his mouth, “if anything, _you’re_ the brave one here. After all, that foreman of yours never stood a chance against the likes of Asriel Dreemurr. But you stood up to him on your own! _That’s_ real bravery!”

Willowrot blushed, suddenly at a loss for words. “I-I wouldn’t know if I’d say _that_ _,_ you—you _handsome_ devil,” she said as her twiggy fingers curled over the back of his neck and stroked his fur.

It was only then that Asriel’s brain caught up with him and he realized that this dryad was flirting with him. Undyne stood next to him, watching the conversation play out, and audibly suppressed a snicker.

“As much as I’d love to stay and chat,” Asriel said, his heart fluttering in the heat of Willowrot’s advances and his brain desperately telling him to get back to business, “we really must be on my way, me and my friend. You see, I’m looking for someone very near and dear to me. They’re human, a little shorter than me, brownish hair, pale skin, red eyes… and I think they’ve passed through here. Their name is Chara Dreemurr—”

Willowrot pulled away from Asriel. Her eyes widened in shock. “Did you say _Chara?”_

Finally, a good lead! “So they’ve been this way! Willowrot, can you tell me which direction they went in?”

“Chara, as in… _Sovereign_ Chara?” Willowrot put her bark-coated hand over her mouth. “By the flames of Hades… do you _know_ them?”

 _Sovereign…?_ They’re _the “Sovereign” these monsters have been talking about?_ “Do I _know_ them? Of course I know them!” Asriel cried. “I’m their _brother!”_

“Y-you… you… there… there are… _two_ of you?” Willowrot sputtered. If the starstruck dryad had been shocked before, now she was _in_ shock. She stopped looking _at_ Asriel and started looking _through_ him. Undyne had the foresight to catch her before she tumbled to the ground.

“ _Two of you,”_ she muttered as her eyes rolled up and she passed out.

Undyne flashed Asriel a toothy grin and winked at him. “You’ve still got it, heartbreaker. Couple more seconds and she’d have been asking you to autograph her boobs.”

The caverns spun around Asriel. “Find me something soft, quickly, Cap. I think I might be next.”

Undyne scrambled to set Asriel’s new biggest fan down on the ground and grab hold of him before his own wobbly, deadened legs gave out beneath him. “Whoa there! Gotta work on your stamina, Azzy…”

 _Whatever you’re up to, Chara,_ Asriel thought with a smile before everything went black, _it sounds like you’re doing some good work in here._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "What do we want?" "FRY'S DOG!" "When do we want it?" "FRY'S DOG!"
> 
> Fun fact: Asriel's latest admirer is based on this enemy from Castlevania: Aria of Sorrow:  
>   
> Isn't she cute?


	22. Lords of the Castle, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Soma tries out a new look, Mina learns something, and Chara introduces the concept of due process to Dracula's castle.

Soma wiped his sword on his jeans as the armored creature he’d just run through fell to its knees and burst into flames. As the fire consumed the monster’s plated armor, its soul flew in an arc through the air and sank into Soma’s chest, filling him with invigorating energy and driving the ache from his muscles.

“All clear,” he told Mina and Yoko. “Let’s move on.”

“Couldn’t we have just snuck past it?” Mina asked, eyeing the monster’s charred remains with distaste.

“It’s better this way.” Soma led the girls down the marble corridors. “These things are dangerous, you kno— _oh?”_ His eye wandered across the hall and spied an alcove his burgeoning intuition told him he should investigate.

The hanging gardens seemed so far to be the most opulent part of Castlevania by a wide margin, and the alcove tucked into the wall was resplendent. Sheer silken curtains hung from the ceiling, barely hiding a nook adorned with gold, jewels, and skillfully-shaped clay sculptures.

In the center of the alcove, on a raised platform surrounded by flickering candles, was a squarish glass inkwell filled with black ink. Some part of Soma’s senses told him there was a soul ripe for the taking in that pot. He couldn’t quite describe how, but he seemed to be able to just _smell_ it.

As he reached for it, he noticed a hanging scroll on the pedestal beneath the inkpot adorned with Japanese script. _How’d_ this _end up in Dracula’s castle?_ he wondered as he knelt down and brushed the dust from it.

Mina leaned over his shoulder as Soma tried to decipher the writing. “Mina, can you read this?” Soma asked.

“You’ve lived in Japan for _how_ many years now?” asked Yoko.

“What are you, my mom? This is like _The Canterbury Tales._ Besides, there’s still some kanji I don’t know yet,” Soma muttered defensively.

Mina studied the scroll intently. _[This inkwell contains the soul of an evil kitsune,]_ she read aloud, _[who, six centuries ago, mastered the art of calligraphy to create illusions and bewitch mortal men with mere words and paintings. Dare not release her spirit, lest you…]_

It sounded like quite a useful soul to Soma, so without further ado he swiped the inkpot and removed the cap.

Mina grabbed him. “Soma, wait, no—”

A silver light burst from the inkwell, temporarily blinding Soma and stinging his eyes. When the dancing spots faded from his vision he felt static electricity fill his body, as if someone had spilled old TV snow in liquid form all over him. Everything from the tips of his ears to the tips of his toes were on pins and needles.

Then, for a second, it felt like he’d been turned inside-out and outside-in at the same time. He fell on all fours as he felt every part of his body _snap_ all at once. The pain was immense, but lasted only an instant before fading away.

Mina stumbled back. “S-Soma? Is that _you?”_

That was a weird question. As if Soma could be anybody else!

Soma cracked his back and yawned as he pulled himself up, stretching the aches out of his body and setting the empty inkwell back on its pedestal as the staticky sensation faded away. He felt a little weird, a bit like an aftertaste in his mouth only all over his body, and hot and itchy all over for some reason, but… “Sure it’s still me.” He wrinkled his nose. “Who else would I be?”

Mina looked him up and down and bit her lip, her cheeks growing a little red. “Y-you mean you don’t notice?”

“Notice what?” Soma asked, scratching behind his ear as Yoko, unable to restrain herself, burst out laughing. He looked down at his paws—

 _Wait,_ he thought, _what the_ hell?

Yoko doubled over with laughter and clung to the broken javelin she’d been using as a walking stick for support, the loss of her friend momentarily forgotten. “Oh my god, Soma, you look like…” She caught her breath. “Is that your _fursona,_ Soma?”

Soma scratched at his new snout and with dawning horror as he tried to balance on newly-shaped legs realized that the soul he’d just received was far, far more trouble than it was worth.

“ _E_ _xcuse_ me?” he slurred. Now that he’d noticed, there were _way_ too many teeth in his mouth now, and Soma was worried he might bite his tongue off by accident when he tried to talk. He could barely even fit all of it in his mouth. He felt like the centipede who couldn’t figure out how to walk once he started thinking about it.

“You look like a fourteen-year-old girl’s first furry OC!” Yoko choked out, nearly crying.

“What has happened to you?” Mina asked, still in shock.

“Um—I-It’s a kitsune’s soul,” he explained. “Probably, uh, casts illusions or something.” _Yeah, illusions so good they even feel real to_ me. _Who am I fooling?_ Soma recalled that kitsune were trickster spirits, and it seemed he’d gotten tricked.

“Wait, wait,” Yoko pulled out her phone, wiping tears from her eyes. “Before you change back, I need to get a picture of this.”

“I-I like it,” Mina offered, stepping closer as she recovering from the shock of seeing Soma’s body change shape so suddenly. “It’s cute. I think the kemono look f-fits you like a suit.”

“That’s, uh, ‘suits you,’ Mina.” Soma tried to take a step back and stumbled a little, caught off-guard by the addition of a few more appendages throwing off his center of mass. “A-and it’s not _cute!_ It’s a nuisance! All these tails are throwing off my balance, and as the team’s muscle, I can’t afford to keep them.” He twisted his back, trying to get a good look at his behind. This was ridiculous! There were, what, _nine_ of those giant fuzzy things sticking out of him?

Yoko held her phone up. “Soma, keep holding your paws like that, you look _adorable.”_

Soma lost his balance and hit the floor. “Th-this is bullying,” he said, trying to pick himself up but only managing to fall forward onto his hands and knees instead.

“Oh my god, Soma,” Yoko wheezed, gasping for breath, “I drew characters who looked just like you all over my notebooks in math class!”

“Miss Yoko, please!” Mina helped Soma pull his newly-shaped body up. “Can you not see you’re upsetting him?”

“No, no, by all means, keep going.” Soma hardly liked being the object of ridicule, but at least Yoko wasn’t moping about Alucard’s whereabouts anymore.

Mina shrugged Soma’s coat off of her shoulders and handed it back to him. “If it’s any consolation, you match your coat even more now…”

Soma squeezed his eyes shut and concentrated. But before he could concentrate of ridding himself of this burdensome soul, a gaggle of monsters making a loud and very distracting racket came around the corner of the twisting corridor through the inner quarters, grimy denizens of the castle holding lots of nasty-looking weapons—swords, spears, axes, cudgels, boards with long nails in them. All those monsters looked, oddly, _delicious._

Mina yelped, wrapped Soma’s coat tighter around herself, and hid behind him.

The monsters’ leader held up their hand. “Halt!”

They seemed human enough, with red-brown hair and a pale complexion. Soma recognized them instantly, although they’d found a new wardrobe: Chara Dreemurr, enigmatic sibling of the King. They now wore an elegant, ostentatious ruffled dress—black with white and blood-red accents. Had they started their goth phase or gone native? Or both?

Chara gestured to Yoko. “I know this one. She’s a _friend.”_

Yoko dropped her phone. _“Chara_ _Dreemurr_ _!?_ Wh—what are _you_ doing here?”

“I think that's obvious.” Chara gestured to one of the skeletal knights. “Brook, do be a gentleman and assist the lady there. She’s clearly injured.”

Yoko raised a skeptical eyebrow. “It’s really not that obvious.”

“You’re walking with a limp.”

“No, I mean what you’re doing here.”

“Oh, you know, making new friends.” Chara winked impishly.

A dripping pile of slime among the monsters piped up. “Thanks to Sovereign Chara, we now know that we are all entitled to the full fruits of our labor!”

Mina eyed the weapon at Soma’s side. “It doesn’t look like they’ll hurt us, Soma.”

Soma relaxed his grip on his sword, but kept it by his side.

Chara caught a look at Soma, awestruck. _“Soma?_ That’s _you?_ How did you _do_ that?”

Soma sighed. “By accident.”

“Lucky.”

Soma really wanted to change the subject. “These guys are peaceful?” he asked.

“Oh, but of course,” Chara responded.

“So why all the weapons?”

“Oh, these?” Chara sighed and rolled their eyes. “Well, you see, I’m leading a posse to hunt for the—”

“The White Demon!” the eight-foot-tall man-shark at Chara’s side shouted with a shake of his fist. “He with the silver hair who dominates the weak and strong alike, subjecting them to eternal torment under his command!”

Mina and Soma shared an uncomfortable glance, although Mina’s looked slightly less uncomfortable and slightly more “I-told-you-so.” Soma briefly entertained the question of whether or not the man-shark’s soul would taste like sashimi and reflexively licked his lips. With a snout like this he felt like he could probably swallow the guy in one bite.

“My friends,” Chara turned to their posse, gesturing to Yoko and Mina. “this is my _other_ friend, Yoko. You’ll all get along famously: she’s a witch, or so I’m told. Oh, and _you_ must be Mina. Delighted to meet you; I’ve heard so much.”

 _[Who’s that?]_ Mina asked Soma.

 _[King Asriel’s sibling. Long story. They’re on our side,]_ he told her. _[I think.]_

Mina bowed politely. “Your dress looks lovely, Miss Chara.”

“‘Sovereign’ will do,” they answered coolly, “but thank you.” They curtsied to her in gratitude before addressing their posse yet again. “Monsters of Dracula’s Castle, you have nothing to fear from our new guests.”

“Is that so? _He_ be all white,” a skeleton in a tattered buccaneer’s longcoat snarled, waving a rusty cutlass in Soma’s direction. “Be he the White Demon we be chasing?”

Chara scratched their chin and looked straight at Soma, boring into him with their crimson eyes. Soma would have started sweating bullets were he not currently covered in fur. “Well, Soma? _Be_ ye?”

“Nay, comrade,” said a heavily-armored wolf-man Soma could swear he’d seen before, raising a heavily-bandaged and bloodied paw and speaking with a withered, raspy voice. “This fellow beast mayhaps hath hair of ivory, but the White Demon hath hair only on his head, and doth take the shape of a lowly human, as you do. This here is clearly a fox, not a man.”

“Thank you, Worf.”

“I am Woof, my Sovereign.”

“Well, then!” Chara clapped their hands briskly. “There you have it. Sorry, guys. There’ll be no drawing and quartering here, I’m afraid.”

The monsters slowly lowered their weapons, letting out a mass sigh of disappointment.

Soma groaned. If it was the only thing standing between him and public execution, it looked like he’d be stuck in this body for quite a while.

Yoko put her hand to her throat. “We have to tell the others about this—”

Chara threw up their hands. “No!” they barked forcefully. “I need this kept between us for now. And speaking of ‘between us,’ Soma, a word, if you will?”

Before Soma could object, they marched over to him and grabbed him by his sleeve. “In private. Now.” They waved at the monsters under their command. “Treat these ladies as you would treat an honored guest in your own home.”

And with that, they flung Soma into the next room, dragging him up by his collar and pinning him against a luxurious couch planted in the center of the room, slamming the door shut behind them. Rain from swollen clouds pattered against the clear floor-to-ceiling window while lightning flashed and thunder rumbled outside.

Chara’s eyes blazed with intense fury. A heat-haze made the air around their hands quiver, and Soma felt an invisible blade press against his neck, just close enough to almost break the skin. His wrist burned where Chara had grabbed him with their other hand.

Soma wasn’t quite sure what to do. Just moments before, he’d felt pretty confident he could take Chara in a straight-up fight if they turned on him, even in his current state, but right now he wasn’t so sure.

Soma didn’t know much about Chara. They were King Asriel’s adopted sibling. They’d died one hundred or two hundred or three hundred years ago—who knew for sure, time had been all weird while the monster kingdom was locked up underground, or so the experts said. And then they’d come back to life, somehow. Oh, but this wasn’t the _original_ Chara, who was still dead, this was some version of Chara from an offshoot timeline. With this turn they were taking, he was beginning to think that maybe Asriel didn’t know much about Chara either.

“Uh… I… like your dress?” he said, trying to flatter Chara into putting the knife down. They seemed like the kind of person who reacted well to compliments. “It’s so… fluffy. Ruffly. Comfy.”

 _Why did I just say their dress looked comfy?_ Soma thought.

Chara gave him a disarming little grin. “Why, thank you. It is, actually—albeit a little loose around the chest.”

“Really?” Soma smiled uneasily. His plan seemed to be working. “I hadn’t noticed. You really make it work—”

Chara pressed the knife closer, and the rest of Soma’s words became a gurgle in his throat. “Now listen to me, Soma, and listen very carefully,” they growled. “I know what you are, and I know what you’ve been doing. I can’t have your murderous rampage terrorizing my people.”

“Murderous? Hey, they’re just—”

“Just _what,_ Soma? Just _monsters?”_

Soma tried to back away from the knife as it threatened to bite into his jugular and give him one last problem to worry about, but he had nowhere to go. “A-and what do you mean, ‘your people?’” He laughed nervously. “No way. You’re not… trying to _take over_ Castlevania, are you?”

“I very well _might_ be.”

Soma wasn’t as surprised as he thought he’d be. Chara _already_ looked enough like a vampire with their red eyes and pale complexion.

“B-but you can’t be Dracula,” Soma protested. “Dracula died in 1999. You’re like—weren’t you born in the 1800s, or 1700s, or the 1920s, or something? When _were_ you born?”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, nobody ever said anything about me being _Dracula…_ but who knows? ‘ _If chance will have me king, why, chance may crown me.’”_ Chara drew closer, digging their knee into Soma’s stomach, pushing him into the couch cushions. “Now listen to me. While I rather dislike you, and the whole serial murder thing I cannot abide—”

“‘Serial murder?’ Give me a break—”

“I can hardly let you die in full view of Miss Hakuba and Miss Belnades. They’d turn on me in an instant. If I let my comrades get their hands on you, I’d lose everything.”

“Gee, thanks.” _With friends like these, who needs enemies?_

“It’s just your luck you’ve got that rather fetching disguise on right now, though—because if you didn’t, I wouldn’t have been able to stop them from tearing you apart right then and there.”

“You mean I have to _stay_ like this? It’s gonna wear off eventually! I think.” _I hope,_ Soma thought. It was surprisingly hard to sit down with all these tails in the way.

“I’ll think of something, don’t you worry. You just keep your fur on for now.”

Soma sighed in relief. Now, if only he could get Chara off him long enough to call in and warn everyone else that they’d gone off the deep end…

As if they could read his mind, Chara reached out, and with one quick motion, plucked at Soma’s throat and tore the communications patch off. The patch came off between their forefinger and thumb, short silvery-white hairs still stuck to the adhesive backing, and they crumpled it up and tossed it into a corner. “Oh, but I can’t have you betraying my confidence, can I?” they remarked with a smile.

 _Can’t you?_ Soma thought.

“It’s not that what I’m doing is _bad,”_ Chara continued, offering Soma a pale, thin hand. “Those monsters are _better_ for my leadership.” Their eyes sparkled as their face lit up with manic fervor. “Think about it—thirty-six years without a master, and yet the larger, stronger monsters have preserved the same old class strata as if Dracula never died, the same brutal serfdom—like a cockroach with its head cut off. It should be obvious to see I’m _liberating_ them!”

Chara hadn’t gone off the reservation—they’d gone off it, founded a new country, and declared war. A thought came to Soma. _This upstart dares prance around as if they_ own _this castle?_

“The natural state of all humans and monsters is freedom, and I alone can show them how to embrace it! They have nothing to lose but their chains—their creepy, clanking ghost chains—and a world to win!” Chara helped Soma to his feet. “You can understand that, right?”

_I understand you’ve gone full Colonel Kurtz with a side of Che Guevara, pal._

They put a hand on Soma’s shoulder. “But imagine, if I tried to explain to my little brother, or your friend Alucard, that this castle belongs in my oh-so-capable hands—Dracula didn’t appreciate what he had! People misunderstand so, so very easily…”

 _Yeah,_ Soma thought, _I wonder how someone could misinterpret you saying something like, “I am the new Dracula.” It boggles the mind._

Chara tweaked Soma’s whiskers—Soma’s brain wasn’t really sure how to process how it felt, since he’d never had whiskers before—and smiled rakishly. “So let’s keep this between us, okay?”

Soma nodded.

And then Chara tugged harshly at his ear and whispered into it, _“And if you kill even one more monster… the torment you suffer will be beyond your imagination.”_

They helped Soma up and guided him back into the hall.

–

Mina hung onto Soma’s back half-asleep as Chara led their three companions deeper into the castle. She yawned as her cheek brushed against his.

Mina had every right to be exhausted. Yoko had regaled Soma with a play-by-play recount of their encounter with the King in Yellow, and Soma had been amazed. Yoko—yes, she was a secret agent with magic powers, so of course she could defend herself. But Mina? After years of beating back bullies for her like some sort of chivalrous knight, Soma had never really thought that Mina could stand up for herself—after all, she’d never _needed_ to. He found himself humbled by her bravery.

Mina’s eyes cracked open. “Hey, Soma,” she mumbled groggily.

“Yeah?” Soma answered.

“What big ears you have,” she said.

As much as he didn’t much care for the current shape of his body, he couldn’t help but smile, because he knew exactly where she was going with this. “All the better to hear you with.”

“And what big eyes you have,” she said.

“All the better to see you with.”

“And what big teeth you have,” she said.

Soma laughed in spite of himself. “All the better to _eat_ you with, my darling!”

Mina laughed as well and tightened her grip around Soma’s chest, sinking her face into his new coat of fur. Soma felt his entire face turn red, although thankfully no one could see it.

[Can you stay like this?] Mina asked.

[For how long?]

 _[Forever,_ perhaps?]

[I can’t do that,] he protested. [Think of all the shampoo I’d have to use!] Never mind that keeping this disguise up was constantly leeching from him whatever magical energy reserves in his body powered all the soul-stuff he could do. He was running low on fuel.

Mina mumbled something inaudible, and for a second Soma thought that, actually, he _could_ get used to this—even though Yoko still had to suppress a laugh when she looked at him and remembered (Soma assumed) all the time she’d spent in middle school doodling all over her notes.

[Soma?] Mina asked blearily. [I didn’t mean to be rude to her—but Sovereign Chara seemed upset when I called her ‘Miss Chara.’ Is she married? Should I have said ‘Mrs.’ instead?]

“No, it’s not that.” Soma shrugged. “At least, I don’t _think_ so.” [It's just that I’m pretty sure they mentioned something about being nonbinary the other day.]

[‘Nonbinary?’ I’ve never met anyone like that.]

[It’s not like it’s uncommon,] Soma told her, although given Mina’s sheltered upbringing, he wasn’t so surprised such things weren’t on her radar.

[I must have offended them. Do you think we ought to apologize?]

[No, I don't think there’s any need to go that far. Just use gender-neutral terms and they probably won’t mind.]

Mina’s disposition became sunnier. [Oh, that’s easy! I was worried it would be difficult… I mean, I don’t have much experience in such matters. I can’t imagine not being a man or a woman. Or even not being a girl.]

[Really? You’ve _never_ thought about what you’d be like if you were a different gender?]

[Um… no?]

“Not even once?” Mina’s answer took Soma by surprise. “I thought _everyone_ did.” He glanced over to Yoko.

Yoko shook her head. “Can’t say I’ve ever given _that_ any thought.”

Soma’s spirits fell. “Oh.”

“Soma,” Mina asked, “do you mean you—”

“Let’s talk about something else,” Soma interrupted, suddenly feeling oddly vulnerable.

Chara shot a suspicious backward glance at Soma before refocusing their attention on the phalanx of monsters ahead of them. But he and Mina hadn’t been talking about anything _serious—_

Of course. Chara wasn’t fluent in Japanese, were they? But on the other hand, Soma, Mina, and Yoko all spoke it. That was how he could send a message to the others! Soma beckoned Yoko over.

Yoko caught the intensity in Soma’s eyes. “Is something the matter, Soma?”

 _[I need to talk to you,]_ Soma whispered. _[It’s about our new host.]_

Yoko leaned in closer.

_[Miss Belnades, I’m going to tell you something, and when I do, I need you to pretend it’s a joke. Okay?]_

“Okay.”

Soma took a deep breath and hoped that he was right, speaking as generally as possible to avoid letting an incriminating proper noun slip out. _[Our host thinks they’re in charge of this castle now.]_

“ _What?”_

Chara turned their head again, their eyes boring into Soma’s.

And then Yoko threw her head back and laughed. “Good one, Soma!” She playfully flicked his ear. “Never took you for a comedian.”

One of the monsters bringing up the rear piped up. “What’s the joke?”

“Oh, uh…” Soma thought for a moment. “It was a pun. It only works in Japanese. Sorry.”

 _[What are we going to do?]_ Yoko asked. _[If we try to send a message, we can’t send it in English. Does anyone else we can talk to know Japanese?]_

_[The king knows a little bit, I think. But nowhere near enough. He can say ‘hi’ and ‘how are you,’ but not well.]_

_[What about Doctor Alphys?]_

_[All the anime subs in the world won’t make you fluent.]_

Yoko sighed. _[Well, maybe she can pick out the important bits._ _I have an idea._ _]_ “Er— _Sovereign_ Chara—”

A sudden raucous cheer went up from the front of the phalanx of monsters, and as they broke formation, two skeletons in centurion armor dragged a silver-haired man in a white suit over to Chara. Mina gasped.

“Sovereign Chara,” the skeleton spoke. “We bring you the White Demon.”

Chara put a hand to their chest. “My, my. The scourge of my people, in the flesh. Charmed to meet you. I’m Chara.”

Soma breathed a sigh of relief. _Phew. I’m off the hook._ Then he realized that he recognized the man—the priest from the prison cell. “Father Jones? What are _you_ doing here?” The monsters now forming a semicircle around the priest grew restless and irate, and Soma felt horrible. He couldn’t just let this guy take the heat, could he?

Graham looked over at him, and took a second to recognize Soma. _“Soma?_ Young boy, what’s happened to you?”

“I got bitten by a radioactive fox. Where’s everyone else? Where’s Senator Enright?”

“Oh, we’ve been separated,” said Graham, seemingly oblivious to how dire his current situation was. He seemed almost as stupid as the senator he worked for. “I simply got a little lost. I see you found your friend! Hello, Miss Hakuba!”

Mina waved. “Hello, Mr. Graham.”

Soma was perplexed. “You two _know_ each other?”

“I was in the cell across from her.” Graham smiled. “It would have been awfully rude not to at least say hello.”

“‘Senator Enright?’” Chara drew out the name slowly, as if tasting every syllable like a fine wine. “You wouldn’t, by any chance, be referring to Edison Enright?”

“Ah, yes. We were all swept into this,” Graham gestured at the castle, “this strange place at one of his campaign rallies.”

“Where is he?”

Graham looked befuddled. “I wouldn’t know. He could be anywhere, couldn’t he be, my good lady?” Graham told Chara.

“I’m not ‘your good lady,’” Chara replied, crossing their arms.

“My apologies.” Graham bowed.

One of the werewolf twins spoke up. “May I have the honor of killing him, comrade?”

“Wait!” A feather-coated, winged demoness spoke up. “You and your brother put up the bounty! It is not fair if one of _you_ claims it! The new order must be _fair!_ _”_

Soma let Mina off his back. “Wait!” he called out as the angry monsters brandished their weapons. This was it. In a second those monsters would be calling for _his_ head. “That man—”

“You’re right, Silene! The new order _must_ be fair! This man deserves a fair trial!” Chara bellowed with a flourish of their dress, letting its ruffled layers sway around their legs. “We are not savages!” Their voice boomed. Soma wondered how such a large and authoritative voice could come out of the mouth of such a slight and skinny person. “All villains, no matter how heinous, deserve their day in court!”

Chara paced back over to Graham. “We must weigh the evidence proving that this Father Jones is a killer. If you are to condemn him for the most vile of acts against our kingdom, you must be completely sure you have the right man!”

“But we know it for certain!” one of the monsters retorted.

“And if you suspend the rule of law, who is next?” Chara loomed over them, despite being about two feet shorter. They did an exemplary job of looming; they _owned_ this role they’d fallen into, slipped into it like a second skin.

Soma had no doubt Chara had been a king back in their world, and a damn good one at that—no, not _good,_ but rather _effective._ They’d put all their points into charisma and kept rolling natural twenties.

“Who else will you deny judge and jury to? Hmm?” They passed by each monster in the rowdy semicircle in turn. “Who will be the next head on the chopping block? Who will next grease the guillotine’s blade with their blood? The petty thief? The liar? The dissident?”

Chara’s words hung in the air. The monsters muttered among themselves, not all convinced. Mina began to clap.

Yoko joined in on the applause. “Bravo! Bravo, Chara!”

“Yeah!” Soma started to clap as well. “Justice for all! _Trial by jury! Trial by jury!”_

The monsters slowly took up the chant. _“Trial by jury! Trial by jury! Trial by jury!”_

–

With the monsters occupied, Soma ducked behind a corner, popped away to his mind palace, and set the kitsune’s soul back on his shelf. When he opened his eyes, he was his old self again. He ran his tongue over his teeth. Just the right length. Just the right number of teeth. He took a deep, relieved breath, then let it out in a long and satisfied sigh. It was like finally taking a leak after going for eight hours with a full bladder. “Much better.”

Yoko looked up and down the hallway. In both directions, it was empty. “Now’s the perfect time to warn everyone else about Chara,” she said.

Mina piped up. “Why?” she asked.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean… do they really seem all that bad?” Mina cast a glance down the hall, at the closed door beyond which clustered murmurs leaked out. “They’re teaching these monsters about fair trials and other civilized things. Maybe they’re just what this castle needs!”

“Can there really be such a thing as a ‘good Dracula,’ Mina?” Yoko asked.

“Yeah, you’d think your shrine maiden training might’ve said something about that?” said Soma.

“No, actually, there wasn’t anything about Dracula,” Mina responded. From anyone else, it would have sounded sarcastic or glib. But Mina didn’t _do_ sarcasm. “If they teach these monsters to behave,” she added, “maybe _you_ can behave, too, and stop trying to kill them. Won’t that make things easier?”

“I don’t think they’d have held me at knifepoint and taken my comm patch if they didn’t _mind_ us telling the world about their little coup,” Soma said as he rubbed his throat. “They’re up to something evil, and they know it. Come on, Yoko. Make the call.”

Mina still had the trial on her mind, though. “What if they find that priest guilty?”

Soma shrugged. “I’m sure Chara will hand down a fair punishment,” he lied. “Or not. No skin off our noses.” He was trying to convince himself more than anything, though. It wasn’t Graham’s fault he was a moron.

Yoko sighed, “Okay, I’ll make the—”

The door to the impromptu courtroom swung open, and one of the twin wolfmen stepped out. Warp—or was it Woof?—saluted. “The Sovereign hath commanded me keep watch over thee three.”

Soma suppressed a groan and put his disguise back up, immediately losing his balance on account of all those damn fluffy tails (thankfully, those same tails cushioned his fall). Kitsunes were the _worst._ He wouldn’t wish this indignity on his worst enemy.

–

Graham was surprised to find a second usurper in the castle. But at the very least, this androgynous stick insect of a human did a far better job of _looking_ the part than Soma Cruz.

Chara’s red eyes blazed, twin points of scarlet fire set into the smoky, raccoon-like makeup smeared over their eyes as they stood before Graham. They’d taken him to a side room and sat him down beyond earshot of the monsters holding trial. “Mr. Graham Jones.”

“ _Father_ Graham Jones,” Graham corrected.

“I don’t care.” Chara held their arms behind their back as they circled Graham like a vulture.

 _The_ nerve _of this child,_ Graham thought. _If I were its father…_

“What I _do_ care about, Mr. Jones, is justice. Do you know Latin, Mr. Jones?”

“Of course.” Graham gave a polite, simpering smile. “What do you take me for? An ignoramus?”

“Yes.” Chara brushed a lock of their hair out of their eyes and took a moment to fiddle with the crimson bow adorning their collar. “Tell me if you know this one, Jones: _Fiat_ _j_ _ustitia, ruat caelum.”_

“‘Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.’”

“A personal motto of mine,” said Chara.

 _Then will you return what you have stolen from me?_ Graham wondered. _Or is that not “justice?”_

“Now, I know you aren’t the man my monstrous comrades are looking for. But _they_ might need much more convincing. They will certainly find you guilty—despite my best efforts.”

Graham didn’t think he had anything to worry about—if this upstart could win the hearts of the castle’s demonic denizens so easily, then it would be a snap for the true reincarnation of Lord Dracula.

“But I’m prepared to make you a deal. I hear you’re closely associated with President Edison Enright.”

Graham chuckled. “My boy, he’s not president yet.”

“I am not ‘your boy.’”

“But neither are you ‘my lady?’”

Chara prodded at their cuticles. “If you’d like to rejoin the twenty-first century at some point, please let me know whenever you’re ready. Now, _Senator_ Enright— _he_ is a man I would very much like to meet.”

Chara knelt down, bringing their eyes level with Graham’s, and as Graham looked into eyes like rubies set in a foggy black miasma, he had to commend Chara on their excellent presence. For a pretender, they _got_ Dracula, at least as far as visual aesthetics went. Perhaps, once Graham had ascended to the throne and claimed the unfathomable power he was owed by the cosmos, he would keep them around as a lieutenant… or a pet, if they were loath to _willingly_ serve him.

“I have a plea deal for you. You will be convicted guilty, but your sentence will be greatly commuted. On the condition that you lead me to Edison Enright within the next hour.”

“What if I don’t know where he is?”

“Then you will help me find him.”

“What if I can’t find him?”

“Then I won’t stop my subjects from drawing and quartering you.”

“Why all this for a lowly senator? Are you a fan of his?” Graham shook his head. “That man attracts the strangest degenerates, I swear.”

“No, no. In fact, I’m the furthest thing from a ‘fan’ of his. I don’t want to get his autograph, or have a ‘selfie’ taken with the man,” Chara said, rising up to their full height. With a rather wicked smile, they continued, _“I want to_ _bathe_ _my hands in his blood.”_

“Why’s that?”

Chara licked their lips. “Because, after all… he’s only human.”

Graham suppressed a smile. _This_ _one_ _… is quite interesting._ “I cannot condone murder of such a godly man.” He sighed. “Oh, but I suppose you leave me no choice… So powerful. So forceful. So charismatic. Surely _you_ and you alone must be the true heir to Count Dracula.” He tried very hard not to let the sarcasm show in his voice. “Very well. I will accompany you on your search.”

–

Soma had found a floor-to-ceiling mirror hanging on the wall, and as annoying as the kitsune disguise he’d had foisted on him in this farce was, he _did_ have to admit he struck a rather dashing figure in the mirror with that angular snout and pointy ears and luxurious pelt of silver and black fur, just a bit of it spilling over the collar of his shirt…

It was no wonder Mina wished he could stay like this. Soma had to admit, he actually looked kind of cute.

Mina squeezed his hand. “ _Soma,”_ she whispered.

“Huh? Yeah?” Soma pulled himself away from his reflection.

Mina poked the tips of his fingers and wiggled his claws. “You have _paw beans,”_ she whispered in a state of dazed amazement.

Soma cleared his head. “Er—No, Mina, I’m not _staying_ like this!” he insisted. “Keep bothering me and maybe I’ll just turn you into a fox and see how _you_ like it!”

Mina blushed. “You would do that for _me_ _?”_

“Y—You’re not supposed to _want_ that!”

Cheers came out from the makeshift courtroom, but as the monsters exited behind them, it was clear that not all of them were pleased with the outcome of the trial.

Chara led Graham out and made a beeline for Soma and the others.

“Chara!” Yoko smiled nervously. The werewolf babysitter had eagerly monopolized all of her time with some card game he’d made up that was a nigh-inscrutable mix of pinochle, “Go Fish,” and three-card monte, leaving her with no chances to call the others. He’d been very proud of his accomplisment.

“How did the trial go?” Yoko asked.

“Splendidly. Mr. Jones has been found… quite guilty. But he and I worked out a plea bargain that was satisfactory to the both of us. While the sentence may disappoint the _hoi polloi,_ I am confident that justice has been done.” Chara turned to face Soma. “And fortunately for you, since Mr. Jones has been unequivocally convicted, _you_ have been cleared of suspicion as well, my furry friend. You may now roam these halls without fear.”

Soma sighed in relief and dropped his disguise, returning once again to human form. One of the nine fluffy tails Mina had been stroking vanished in her hands, much to her disappointment.

They prodded Soma in the chest. _“Now behave,”_ they hissed. _“_ _Or I swear I’ll_ _take you out_ _myself.”_

 _Oh, you’ll ‘_ _take me out_ _,’ will you?_ Soma thought. _Give it a shot,_ _Fidel_ _._

Graham cleared his throat. “Shall we depart?” He winced a little. _“_ _Sovereign_ Chara?”

“We shall.” Chara gestured to their two werewolf lieutenants and motioned for them to take their places beside Mina. Between the three of them, those two hulking wolfmen and the young lady in red and white, it looked like a scene out of _Little Red Riding Hood._ “Graham and I will look for the remaining hostages.”

“And Alucard,” Yoko reminded them.

“Yes, of course. Warp. Woof. Escort our three human guests to the front gate. See to it all three arrive safe and sound.”

“Excuse me?” Graham pointed at Soma. “Why waste his talents out there? Perhaps Soma Cruz should come with _us.”_

Chara scratched their chin. “Capital idea, Mr. Jones…”

Soma took hold of Mina. Mina squeezed his hand in return.

“I assure you,” Chara said, noticing his concern, “your friends will be as safe as safe can be with my loyal guard dogs at their sides.” The twin wolfmen sharply saluted.

“I think it’s a bad idea to split up,” Mina spoke up.

Soma and Yoko nodded in agreement. “I think we can speak from past experience here,” Soma said. “You don’t split the party.” Asriel had been right. All it did was make thing messier. Soma wondered what kind of misery Asriel must have been dealing with on his own at this very moment.

But it wasn’t just that he didn’t want to split the party. Soma didn’t trust Chara nearly as far as he could throw them, and he knew Chara knew it. Chara didn’t trust _him_ either.

Chara drew Soma aside and whispered into his ear, as if they could read his thoughts. “Listen to me, Soma. Miss Belnades here is injured. Miss Hakuba, your friend, cannot defend herself. Those two need to be brought to safety—they’ll only slow us down.”

“I think you just want to keep an eye on me.”

“Actually…” Chara’s eyes flitted over to Graham, who was sizing up the two werewolf brothers (both of whom Mina was currently scratching behind the ears, much to their delight). “As the Bard once said, _‘There’s daggers in men’s smiles.’_ I think I trust Graham just a little less than I trust _you._ And I’d appreciate if it were two-against-one—if it comes to that.”

“He was on the news the other day,” Yoko interjected, speaking in a low voice, as if worried Graham would overhear. “Saying the world would end with the eclipse… then he joined Enright’s campaign.”

“That doesn’t make much sense.” Soma glanced over at Graham as the priest joined in with Mina, scratching the werewolves under their chins. He didn’t seem to be all that smart.

“You’re right, Soma,” said Yoko. “There is something _very_ off about him. He knows more than he lets on.”

“Or he’s nuts,” said Soma. _And probably less dangerous than Comrade Chara here._

It might come to two-against-one, yes—but who against whom? If Soma went along with Chara, then even if Chara went even further off the deep end, they’d at least be outnumbered.

Soma made up his mind. “You’ve convinced me. I’ll watch your back, Chara.” _But if this usurper tries anything, I’ll tear them to shreds with my bare hands._

–

As he left, flanked by the petty thief on one side and the rabble-rousing labor activist on the other, Graham cast a look back at the two werewolves escorting the Hakuba girl and the Belnades girl away. Everything was working out perfectly. Soon he’d have the perfect opportunity to dispose of both his potential usurpers, clearing his way to the throne room.

And as for the two girls, well, who knew what they could do if Graham left them alive?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Me: "Hmm, am I putting too much of my self into these characters?"  
> Me: [makes _at least_ one of them a low-key furry]  
>  Me: "Nah, I'm good."


	23. Lords of the Castle, Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, the plot thickens.

“Why is the senator even _here?”_ Soma asked as Graham led him and Chara through the castle. The bad guys here hadn’t made any demands for anyone except Alucard and Yoko, and Soma saw no reason why Solomon and company would have any real interest in Senator Enright at all. “And why hold him hostage?”

“Like I said,” Graham said, “we came here by accident.”

“And if you had the chance,” said Chara, “wouldn’t _you_ kidnap a US senator?”

“No,” said Soma.

Chara scoffed at him. “Oh, you’re no fun.”

Chara seemed to have a vested interest in tracking Enright down, but was it really out of the goodness of their heart? _If I were a Dracula,_ Soma thought, _or rather, if I_ thought _I were a Dracula, or I_ wanted _to be a Dracula, what would I want with Senator Enright?_

It really wasn’t that Soma was a naturally suspicious or mistrustful person. Like Mina, he tried to give everyone a fair shake (unless, of course, they were a major asshole right from the word “go”). It was just that the Dracula thing didn’t help Chara’s case. And they thought s _ilver fox David Bowie_ over here was suspicious?

Graham claimed he’d gotten separated from Enright and his Secret Service detail in the ballroom to the south, and so they took off in that direction. On their way through the inner quarters of the castle—which Soma still referred to in his head as “the Overlook Hotel”—the trio passed through a room filled with dusty fine china. Soma recognized Grecian urns, _raku_ pottery from sixteenth-century Japan with intensely iridescent colors , and even scale models of modernist and brutalist architecture rendered in delicate ceramics. Dracula was quite a collector, and it seemed he _really_ got around.

This looked like the exact same kind of room some doomed treasure-hunter would come across and ransack before falling victim to some horrible trap—possibly involving trap doors and spike pits. And yet Soma couldn’t help but poke at a little ceramic structure of a giant vampire bat, its wings outstretched as it bit into the neck of a spindly deer, about eight inches high and sitting on a shelf several feet off the floor. The artist had used a red dye for the blood running down the deer’s neck, but the rest of the sculpture was an alabaster white.

The sculpture shuddered and tipped over. Soma hastily caught it and shoved it further back on the shelf before it could tumble to the floor.

Graham cleared his throat as he ran a finger along the dusty shelves and eyed the richly-hued brown wood beneath the pale layer of dust. “So, Mr. Cruz… lost your pet goat, have we?” He took a horsehair _raku_ vase off the shelf, hefting it in his hands as he admired its intense blue-green coloration. Horsehair had been used to create smoky black lines and squiggles across the pottery’s surface. “But at least it seems you’ve found your girlfriend. Kudos.”

“G-Girlfriend?” Soma spluttered. The little wolf sculpture he’d been absentmindedly playing with while talking leaped out of his hands and shattered on the floor. “We’re just friends. Honest. Best friends.”

Yes, she was very pretty, and Soma could definitely see that, and yes, he loved spending time with her, and the way she’d get excited about something she’d studied or the way she’d laugh at a joke he made would make him feel all warm inside, but—you couldn’t be _in love_ with your _best friend,_ could you? Was that something that _really_ happened? Weren’t you just supposed to _know,_ or was that just something that happened in cheesy movies?

Chara opened the door on the far side of the room and gestured to Soma and Graham impatiently. Graham bowed to Soma and bade him go ahead. “After you, lovebird.”

Soma had scarcely taken three steps forward when the vase Graham had been holding shattered against the side of his head. He saw black for a split second and when his vision came back, the room was spinning and swirling around him as thunder crashed between his ears and sparks danced before his eyes. Amid the pain, he could feel a warm trickle of blood running down the side of his face as he stumbled across the room, pottery and dishware clattering to the floor as his every move disturbed shelf after shelf.

Graham’s face swam in front of Soma. He could barely think with the cacophony inside his mind, let alone pick up a weapon he could use from his soul library. But the thought running through his mind as his eyes met Graham’s and he saw the look of feral, sadistic pleasure on the priest’s face, was _Why?_

Soma threw a plate at Graham, narrowly missing his head; chips from shattered pottery showered Graham’s back. But the priest flinched, and Soma tackled him, taking fistfuls of his ivory-white lapels.

Graham shrugged Soma off and pinned him against the wall, and with two fingers of his right hand, brought them to Soma’s chest.

Soma’s heart was caught in a vise—the pain, the sharp, stabbing pain, pain enough to tear a scream from his throat, pain like he’d swallowed a knife. It felt like a heart attack—no, not _just_ that, it felt like fire in his veins, like his blood had been transmuted into molten lead.

Wispy silver fire laced around Chara’s hands as they rushed at Graham. They swung their fist as if holding an invisible sword—and for an instant, Soma _could_ see a sword in their hand, long and sharp and shaped from roiling silver flames. It was just like the golden blades King Asriel could conjure.

The priest took his fingers from Soma’s chest, mercifully freeing him from the pain wracking his body, and as Chara’s semi-visible blade met Graham’s outstretched hand it shattered in a shower of cold sparks.

Freed and able to focus, Soma chose a soul—the blood homunculus, the first soul he’d taken—and stabbed at Graham with the spiny multiple-helix blade that had grown over his hand. The blade hit Graham’s chest—a direct hit—and upon impact liquefied immediately, splashing blood across the priest’s suit. Rather than staining it, though, the blood rolled off of the fabric like water off a raincoat.

Graham grabbed Soma’s wrist with one hand, and Chara’s with the other; the priest didn’t have a strong grip, and yet there it was, the awful pain again. Soma could feel the bones of his wrist and arm crumbling to dust—like he was rotting away from the inside out. Like the marrow in his bones had turned to acid. Graham tossed them both aside; Soma and Chara crumpled against opposite walls of the pottery room and were showered with the detritus of dozens of smashed potteries.

Soma cradled his wrist as Graham straightened out his rumpled lapels. All of his bones were fine—but for an instant that had felt like an eternity, he’d been sure Graham had somehow pulverized them.

Chara ran a river of fire under the floor and out from it burst a dozen silvery, ghostlike blades like weeds; as they came near to Graham’s body, the blades crumbled and disintegrated.

Graham smiled a smile of mild amusement as he looked down at Chara. “I, too, have a personal motto, my friend.” He let out a little, patronizing laugh. “Isaiah 54:17. _‘No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall rise against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn.’”_

Graham turned to Soma next. Soma could hardly move. The illusory pain Graham’s touch produced may have vanished, but the aftershock still lingered. _What’s going on? What the hell_ is _this guy?_

Graham grabbed Soma by his collar. “You. Soma Cruz. You have something of mine—and I want it back.” His eyes, maddened with greed and hunger, were colored a steely and unnatural gray-violet. “All of it.”

“ _What?”_ Soma hadn’t even known this guy until a few hours ago, and he’d definitely never taken anything from him! “I barely even _know_ you! I can’t have _stolen_ anything—” He struggled to free himself from Graham’s grip. “I just met you like an hour ago!”

“Don’t you dare play dumb with me, _boy.”_ Graham let Soma fall to the ground, drawing a gun from his side and chambering a round.

 _This guy’s going to kill me._ Soma cast a glance over at Chara. They lay at the other end of the room, unconscious, with blood matting their ceramic-speckled hair. _Shit, Chara was right about him all along. I’m never gonna live this down as long as I live._ He grimaced. _For as long as that might be…_

Graham leveled the gun at Soma’s chest. “You unnatural creature, I’ll rip you open and dig through you until I find every last piece of _my property!”_

“ _How dare you.”_

Distracted, Graham turned his head, aiming the gun just off to the side as he did so. “Oh, look. The little mix-up who likes to play dress-up.”

Chara stood up, covered in dust and bits of fine china, blood trickling down their forehead. The fury in their eyes matched that of Graham’s own glare and rage emanated from them like an invisible aura. “I welcomed you. I offered you protection.” A heat haze blurred their hand. “And _this_ is how you repay me?”

Graham took a step toward Chara, waving his gun, and Chara backed away with fear flashing across their face.

 _There has to be,_ Soma thought, _a gap in Graham’s armor. Otherwise, how could he have gotten captured by those soldiers in the first place? Or by Chara’s followers?_

Soma took the opportunity to kick Graham in the shin. The priest stumbled and fired, the gunshot tearing through the air with an earsplitting roar, his shot whizzing past Soma’s ear.

 _No weapon forged against you, huh?_ Soma scrabbled to his feet. _“How about my boot, then?”_

 _Shit,_ Soma thought, _I said the wrong part out loud._

A translucent knife, visible solely by the white lines its edges traced in the air, whizzed past Graham’s head as he turned his attention back on Soma. Graham’s eyes flitted over to Chara for a brief instant—

And then one ornamental plate still clinging to life on one of the higher shelves shattered, spraying sharp fragments across the room. A jagged sector bit into Graham’s forehead as it flew past, covering his eyes in a veil of blood.

Graham screamed in pain and anger and dabbed at his eyes with his sleeve, struggling to mop up the blood as it poured from the gash in his forehead. It looked like Chara had figured out Graham’s weakness almost as quickly as Soma had.

Chara grabbed Soma by the arm and wrenched him to his feet, and the two of them bolted out of the room and into the corridors beyond, Graham’s shouting falling out of earshot. Soma wondered how Chara could even _run_ in those clothes, but that question soon vanished from his mind; he had much more important things to worry about right now.

A trio of soldiers came flying up to meet Soma and Chara as they rounded a corner; Chara flung their hand out and all three slumped to the floor, glassy ghost-knives glistening in their chests.

The moldy and peeling scarlet wallpaper of the inner quarters faded away to the pale yellow-gold of the dance hall. Soma and Chara both skidded to a stop inside what looked like an ancient Roman bath house.

Soma’s heart pounded as he sucked air greedily into his lungs. His nerves still jittered; he hadn’t felt this way since the plane crash. The plane crash from _yesterday,_ he had to remind himself _._ He felt like he was floating just a few centimeters above his own body as he slipped on the slightly-damp tile mosaic stretching across the floor.

“Oh, jeez,” he gasped, pressing at the stitch in his side as the pain jolted him back to reality. He glanced over to Chara, who’d taken a much more graceful seat on the edge of one of the drained baths with their legs dangling over the side. “I guess I owe you one, huh?”

Chara fiddled with the scarlet bow at their neck, smoldering silently. Their outfit hadn’t fared well in the pottery room: flying razor-sharp bits of ceramic had made tatters of the bodice and skirt’s many elegant frills and ruffles. Tiny red cuts littered Chara’s pale face and blood trickled down their nose. Soma didn’t think he could say _he_ looked much better than they did, though, judging by the way his head pounded.

“Thanks, I guess.” Soma coughed and nursed his aching head. “By the way… ‘Sovereign?’”

“It’s a gender-neutral title.”

“How about ‘Darth?’ _That’s_ a gender-neutral title.”

Chara glared at him. “I don’t like what you’re implying.”

“Well, _I_ don’t like you threatening to disembowel me.”

He closed his eyes and let himself into his mental library, his deep and regular breaths quelling his racing heart, and he set the red vial containing the blood homunculus’ soul back on the shelf and let his eyes wander across his collection. The library had grown, not just the collection: Bookshelves continued on into black infinity above and below and in every direction; Soma’s shelf of souls now boasted labels and descriptions for each and every soul he’d taken. A combination bestiary and apothecary.

Part of him was a little disconcerted at the change in scenery. How could it have gotten this big without him noticing? The whole point of a mental locus, as Alucard had explained, was that you created it _yourself._

Soma plucked out a greenish vial taken from the plant-monster he’d slain. A soul with healing properties. Some of these souls were from creatures that were just wild animals, like the crab, but _this_ monster: although it (or had it been a she?) had wanted to kill him, hadn’t it been just like the ones outside this castle: a _person?_

 _It’s okay,_ Soma reassured himself. _It was self-defense._

His eyes snapped open back in the hallways of Dracula’s castle, and as Soma returned to reality, he could feel strength returning to his body, the aches and pains fading away. The pounding migraine he’d been carrying faded away the slowest, but the plant-creature’s soul was doing its job. He felt the healing energy buzzing beneath the skin of his palm and, in a show of goodwill, offered it to Chara. They clearly needed it.

Chara noticed the soft yellow-green glow pulsing in Soma’s hand, then shoved it aside. “Don’t touch me.”

“I was just trying to—”

Chara crossed their arms. “Don’t think that because I saved you, I’ve forgiven you.”

They may have been an adult, about ten years his senior as far as Soma could tell, but Chara sure was an incorrigible brat. _Careful you don’t break your ankle getting off that high horse,_ _Drac_ _._

“Look.” Soma spread his arms out. “I don’t know _why_ I can do this. I’m just a normal guy!”

Chara glared at him out of the corner of their eye. “Do what? Murder the weak?”

“The—the whole soul taking thing. Until a few days ago, I _was_ a normal guy, and now I’m here trying to not get chopped up or roasted or sucked into a crab anus while we’re stuck here. It’s not my fault all these souls just _fly_ into me like I’m some kind of supernatural vacuum cleaner, I don’t do this stuff on purpose!” Soma let his arms fall to his sides. “I just do what I can with what I have, okay?”

“But you _kill_ on purpose.”

“It’s self-defense,” Soma retorted, his voice echoing between the tiled floor and ceiling, “and don’t try to tell me _you’ve_ never killed someone for getting in your way!”

“I have,” Chara admitted. “Oh, yes, I have… but _I_ do it for the greater good. You, on the other hand…?”

Graham’s raised voice echoed in the distance. He was still hunting the two of them—and drawing nearer.

“Okay,” Chara muttered.

“‘Okay’ what?”

Chara sighed. “You can use that soul to heal me.”

 _You know, I almost don’t_ want _to now._ But he and Chara were in this together, at least for the moment, and so with some reservations Soma laid his hand on Chara’s shoulder. They slumped over and closed their eyes, relaxing as the shallow cuts on their face (and whatever injuries they’d sustained that weren’t visible) began to fade away.

When they were done, Chara brushed Soma’s hand away once more. “I won’t ask you for something like that again.”

“What’s your _problem?”_ Soma blurted out, at wit’s end.

“I’d rather not pour out my heart for the likes of you.” Chara climbed back to their feet.

“Fine. Forget that I asked.” _Sanctimonious prick._ Soma set the soul back in his mental shelf before he and Chara sneaked out the back of the bath house into another mess of twisting corridors. “Guess we’re even now.” He sighed. “Can’t believe you were _right_ about Graham. Jesus, what the hell is _that_ guy’s problem?”

Chara didn’t answer.

“Man, it’s no wonder that lunatic was locked up when we got here. Even King Crimson and his buddies don’t want to deal with _that_ kind of crazy, I guess.”

Chara flung out their hand and grabbed Soma, catching him by surprise as their fingernails dug through his sleeve and pressed into his skin. _“He was locked up with the President, right?”_ they hissed.

“Senator,” Soma corrected. “Don’t tell me—that guy wasn’t _elected_ in your timeline, was he? Are you from the future?”

“He ran for president in 2024, too.” Chara’s eyes darkened. “Be thankful he lost in your timeline.”

“Why, was he shit?”

Chara just glared at Soma. “Solomon, King Crimson, and these soldiers. They didn’t come here to capture the throne room and claim Dracula’s powers—Alucard said as much. They came here for some _other_ reason.” They gestured wildly as they talked, leaping to their feet and pacing in a semicircle around Soma. “Whatever they were here for—”

“Laying a trap for Alucard and Miss Belnades, by the sound of it—”

“Yes, Soma, but please don’t interrupt, I’m the smart one here. Whatever they were here for, it had nothing to do with any of _them_ becoming Dracula. In fact, it seems they’re here to _stop_ anybody else they think wants to become Dracula. But what does it have to do with… Senator… Edison… Enright…”

Soma felt a pit open up in his stomach. He thought he was following Chara’s same train of thought, but as Chara fell silent, he found himself unwilling to follow that train into its station. Because what Chara was saying was…

 _Graham_ _is_ _Senator Enright’s religious adviser. And if_ he _knew about Dracula…_ “You can’t be serious…!”

“Oh, but I am.” Chara began to laugh. “Senator Enright doesn’t _just_ want to be President of the United States. He wants to be _Dracula_ , too!”

–

Yoko and Mina walked through the castle, flanked by Chara’s twin werewolf lieutenants, Warp and Woof. The posh interior of the inner quarters gave way to the ruined and battered chapel. Sumptuous rugs carpeted the stone floors and tattered banners draped the dim, darkened stained-glass windows lining the halls. Warp and Woof, both nearly six and a half feet tall and both with rippling muscles under their rusty fur, growled and barked at any castle denizen that tried to get too close to the women.

The two fraternal wolves were certainly chivalrous, but Yoko could not shake the feeling she and Mina had simply exchanged one hostage situation for another.

[Why does Dracula have a chapel?] Mina asked as a translucent phantom skull flitted over her head.

Yoko plucked a battered, lightly-burned hymnal from the back of a pew and flipped through it. She shrugged. [Guess he had a complicated relationship with religion.]

She looked around the chapel and saw smoke rising from between gaps and cracks in the stone floor. Sniffing the air, she could smell wood burning. “Mr. Warp,” she asked the wolfman to her side, “this is above the library, isn’t it?”

“I am Woof.” The werewolf gestured to his brother. “My _uncouth brother_ is Warp. Also, indeed, thou art correct. We be ‘bove the library. How didst thou know?”

Yoko cringed a little. “Mina and I kind of—sort of—burned it down.”

Warp barked out a deep, jovial laugh. “Good riddance! All of the monsters in there were snobs!”

“Um, Mr. Warp, Mr. Woof, could you bend down a bit, please?” Mina asked as she pulled the two ribbons out of her hair.

The werewolf twins looked at each other, shrugged, and did as she asked. Mina tied one ribbon around Warp’s right ear, and the other around Woof’s left. “There!” she said, putting her hands on her hips as she admired her handiwork. “Now we won’t get your names wrong anymore!”

Yoko couldn’t help but smile. There Mina went, befriending everything that moved yet again.

They kept going. “If we’re above the library, though,” said Yoko, “then that means we’re on the other side of the castle!”

“Yes,” said Warp.

“But the trial to reach the front gate would be far greater were we not to pass through here,” said Woof.

Yoko had to admit, he had a point. From here, it was almost as simple as retracing Alucard’s and her first steps through the castle in reverse.

As he crossed the chapel floor, Warp’s ears flattened against his head, and he froze in his tracks, sniffed the air, and drew back his lips, revealing sharp yellowed teeth. “Brother, do you smell that?”

Woof nodded in agreement. Yoko sniffed the air, but other than the telltale smell of smoke from the smoldering library in the basement, she couldn’t smell anything out of the ordinary. “What is it, Lieutenant Warp?”

The wolfman licked his chops as he turned to face Yoko, a glazed look in his yellow eyes. “Fresh… _human meat!”_

His claws lashed out, raking Yoko’s chest and tearing through her shirt, revealing the shiny black body armor below. Yoko silently thanked Dr. Alphys as she dashed backward—if not for that armor, she’d have been disemboweled. The other werewolf grabbed him. “Brother!” Woof shouted. “What madness hath breached thine mind?”

Warp tore himself from his brother’s grip, and Yoko only barely managed to pull Mina out of the path of his snapping jaws. It was as if the werewolf had suddenly gone rabid.

She threw out her uninjured hand, folded her finger to create fire—

And nothing happened. Her index fingernail—it was broken! The magic rune inscribed on it had been sheared in half. Without it, she couldn’t complete the seal on her palm—and that meant no fire.

Yoko jerked her hand back as Warp snapped at it, spraying flecks of spittle into her face. She nearly lost her fingers.

“ _Flee, humans!”_ the second werewolf cried out, his voice strangled, before he too succumbed to the ravenous, bloodthirsty hunger and drew angry red lines across Yoko’s forearm.

“ _What’s happened to them?”_ Mina cried out as Yoko headed for the twisting corridors that would take them both to the south gate, the two slobbering beasts in hot pursuit.

“Didn’t get their rabies shot,” Yoko grunted. One of the werewolf twins got too close and yelped as a burst of icy air froze the saliva in his mouth. Mercifully, the other fingernails on her free hand were unharmed. _Of all the times for those monsters to start acting like… monsters…_

Mina stumbled, and one of the werewolf twins—Warp, Yoko thought—bit into her upper arm. She screamed, and Yoko whirled around and sent a lightning bolt right between the wolflman’s eyes. He released Mina, and the twins ran off with their tails between their legs.

Mina clutched at her wound, hyperventilating, as Yoko sat her down. Dark red bloodstains blossomed on the snowy white sleeve of Soma’s thick white coat. Yoko pried at her hand. “Mina, let go. Let me see it.”

With a little more prodding she got Mina to comply, then pulled off Soma’s coat and pushed her bloodstained sleeve up. A tight U-shaped curve of puncture wounds circled around Mina’s bicep, the skin around the oozing wounds already starting to bruise. Fortunately, the blood was already clotting, its flow slowing.

“There, there, it’s not so bad,” Yoko told her. “When we get to safety Alphys’ll patch you up. She’s very nice; you’d like her.”

“I’ve been bitten by a werewolf,” Mina moaned.

“You’ll be fine, Mina.” Yoko picked her up off her feet. “Come on, everything’s gonna be all right.”

“Am I going to turn into a werewolf?” Mina asked.

“No you’re not,” Yoko said, hoping she could reassure her as she racked her brain for any facts about lycanthropy she could remember. “It’s a myth that werewolves turn people by biting them. It’s all genetic.”

“Until today, I thought Dracula was a myth, Miss Yoko,” said Mina.

“Just trust me on this, Mina. You’re not going to turn into a werewolf.”

Mina sighed in relief. “Until today,” she confessed as she put pressure on the wound, “I—I, er, I even thought werewolves were _cute_ _._ Cute for fictional things, I-I mean.”

“Lots of things are cuter when they’re fictional.” Yoko helped Mina to her feet and trudged forward, but as she stepped toward the door into the castle corridors she found a wicked black blade at her throat. Alucard’s sword—the Stardust Omen.

“My, my, my, my, my,” said King Crimson as he stepped out of the shadows, the Stardust Omen in hand. A quartet of his Blutritter goons stood behind him as he prodded Yoko backward, back into the chapel. “Yoko Belnades. Mina Hakuba. We meet again. How _de_ lightful.”

He slipped the silver hand mirror in his other hand back into his coat and grinned, then prodded at Yoko’s throat with the black blade. Yoko feared even such a gentle poke would slit her throat—she knew full well how sharp the Stardust Omen was. But instead, King Crimson caught the edge of her adhesive communication patch and lifted it off her throat.

The Blutritters surrounded Yoko and Mina as King Crimson examined the patch and affixed it to his own throat. Then he drew closer, inspected Yoko’s ear, and plucked the little receiver from hers and slipped it into his. “Ah, there we go.”

He put his finger to his throat. “Testing, testing, one two, one two.” His eyes lit up. “Hi! This is Yoko Belnades—” He laughed. “Nah! Just kidding! It’s me, King Crimson! _Wuh-wuh-wuh-where’s Yoko?_ Don’t you worry about that! I’ve got her right here, and all in one piece, too, for the moment! Now, I want you to transfer me over to a certain Mr. Soma Cruz…”

–

Chara took off down the hall, giving Soma little time to keep up with their breakneck pace.

“But this is _insane,”_ Soma said as he struggled to keep up with Chara, the curling hallways speeding past the two of them. “Last week he was at a baseball game and just sorta hummed through the national anthem. You can’t say that guy is _the_ Dracula!”

“Can’t I? Clearly, the humans who invaded this castle locked him up,” Chara continued, “for the same reason they they laid a trap for Alucard—the same reason they wanted to keep _you_ away from here.”

“Wait—what does _Alucard_ have to do with Dra…” Soma went over it in his head. Alucard. Dracula. God, he felt like an idiot.

“Once can learn a great many things from the denizens of this castle,” Chara said. “Alucard is Dracula’s son. Perhaps _you_ could have found that out for yourself if you’d _talked_ to these monsters instead of slaughtering them like hapless disposables in a mindless action movie.”

“He’s— _what?”_ Was _anybody_ here on the level?

“Oh, don’t be so worried. Alucard is the white sheep of his family, his former subjects assure me. I doubt he has any interest in inheriting anything from his father.” Chara laughed.

“And what do _I_ have to do with Alucard—”

“You mean you hadn’t figured _that_ out either?” Chara rolled their eyes. “And Asriel said you were an honor student. I've worn _dresses_ with higher IQs!”

“What are you talking about?”

“Look at yourself. You swallow and command the souls of monsters.”

“Are you still on about that? I told you, it isn’t on purpose!”

Chara stopped in their tracks, and Soma nearly walked straight into them. They did an about-face, their ragged skirt lagging a second behind and swirling at their knees. “It’s plain as day. These guys have been trying to get rid of anyone who _might_ be Dracula’s successor. Anyone with a lust for power or a supernatural aptitude who’s even _tangentially_ connected to Dracula.” Chara’s eyes widened as they circled around Soma. “I didn’t put two and two together until Graham attacked us, but I could still _smell_ it on you the instant you landed in Mount Ebott. You and I—We’re _rivals.”_

Chara’s words hung in the air as Soma’s brain churned trying to process them.

This was beyond belief. The blood men were one thing. The man made out of birds was one thing. Dracula’s castle popping out of an eclipse was one thing. _This_ was another. Soma had no interest in being some great dark lord. He just wanted to… actually, what _did_ he want to do? “ But I _can’t_ be Dracula,” he protested.

“Why not?”

“I don’t _want_ to be Dracula!”

Chara smiled, an exhilarated light shining in their ruby eyes. “Excellent. That’s one less thing for me to worry about. But still, with you being a contender—you understand how _low_ the bar’ s been set , right? Of _course_ the Senator could be the true heir to the throne.”

Soma, still in shock, took a second to realize he was being insulted.

His ear started buzzing. “Hold on, I’m getting a call.” He put his finger to his throat, then remembered that he couldn’t answer, because Chara had taken his patch off and thrown it away. _Thanks, Chara._

A voice crackled into Soma’s inner ear. _“Soma! Buddy, pal, old friend, not really. It’s me, ya boy King Crimson! ”_

Soma’s heart skipped a beat. How had _he_ gotten onto this line?

“ _You know how you stomped in here to rescue your girlfriend? Well, boy, have I got news for you!”_

“Oh, shit.”

“What is it?” Chara asked.

“ _I’ve got her and Yoko with me here in the chapel, and I’m giving you one last chance to high-tail it over here and come get them! But you’d better hurry—I’m gonna run out of ladyfingers pretty soon!”_

“King Crimson!” Soma knew he couldn’t hear him, but that was beside the point. “P—Pee your pants!”

With that last taunt, though, King Crimson had hung up.

“ _Fuck!”_

Chara grimaced. “Did you just tell a man to piss himself?”

“You try thinking of something badass,” Soma retorted, “when a Nazi has his paws on your best friend. We have to head for the chapel!”

“ _You_ have to head for the chapel,” Chara corrected. “I’ll leave King Crimson to you. You leave the senator and Graham to me.” They grinned. “I’m sure someone like you can handle some Fourth Reich flunky, right?”

“Chara, peoples’ _lives_ are at stake here!”

But Chara dashed away, leaving Soma by himself.

Soma sighed, rolled his eyes, grabbed his whip-sword, and ran off in the opposite direction.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did you ever hear the tragedy of Darth Chara the Stabby? I thought not. It’s not a story the Jedi would tell you...


	24. In the Court of the Crimson King, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Alucard makes a new friend, while Soma encounters an old enemy.

_There was a knock at Alucard’s office door._

“ _Mr. Alucard?”_

_He’d been employed with the Agency for five years. He had a desk now, and an office of his own along with it. He kept half a dozen exotic swords mounted on his wall. It was nice, although with the time he spent in torpor, he hardly used it. “Come in, miss.”_

_The young woman who let the door slowly creak its way open_ _looked nervous, to make quite an understatement. She looked like a deer caught in headlights. “I’m, er…” She glanced with trepidation at Alucard’s gloomy quarters, and he wondered if the model guillotine paperweight was a bit much. “Your new partner. Yoko Belnades?” She spoke her name as if she wasn’t sure it was hers._

“ _Belnades.” Alucard recognized the name, of course. And he recognized the woman, too._ _Nearly the spitting image of…_

“ _I think you know my great-great-great—er, et cetera, et cetera—grandmother’s great aunt. Sypha—”_

“ _Yes, yes. I remember her quite well. Have a seat.”_

_She did so, fidgeting nervously. The girl couldn’t have been more than nineteen years old. The same age as Julius had been. Was this a sick joke, pairing him with her?_

_Alucard calmed himself. “I apologize if my office is intimidating,” Alucard told her as the blade of the model guillotine fell down on its own accord and severed a little Lego man’s head from its shoulders._

“ _What? Intimidating? No, no, not at all!” The girl let out a nervous laugh. “So… you’re a_ real _vampire?”_

“ _Half. On my father’s side.”_

“ _So you only want to suck my blood a little.”_

“ _I do not want to suck your blood_ at all.”

“ _Oh—okay, that’s good, the others said you drank a pint a day to stay beautiful.”_

“ _A pint a day_ _._ _” Alucard_ _nearly_ _laughed at the idea. Even a full-blooded vampire did not need a_ pint _a day, unless_ _they_ _were_ _a glutton_ _(_ _and_ _many were)_ _. “…_ _They say I am beautiful?”_ _He couldn’t quite wrap his head around that idea—with_ this _pale imitation of his_ _face?_

 _Yoko averted her gaze,_ _clearly embarrassed_ _._ _“_ _N-not me, er—the others, though. You know.”_

“ _Yes. I know,”_ _he lied._ _Alucard didn’t concern himself with the absentminded chatter of others._ _“_ _So. It appears we will be working together.”_

 _Yoko nodded. “_ _At least for the summer. It’s an off-season internship.”_

“ _Well,_ _I believe my reputation precedes me. Miss Belnades, tell me yours.”_

“ _Um… well…” Yoko cast a nervous glance around the room. “I’m a second-year chemistry student at State University…”_

“ _Any combat experience?”_

“ _I…_ _um, I kind of accidentally blew up my high school science lab. Dunno if that counts. Nearly got expelled._ _”_

 _She certainly was a Belnades,_ _that was for sure_ _. “Yes, Miss Belnades. I do believe that counts.”_ _He thought he might almost_ enjoy _having her for a counterpart—provided she_ _survived_ _the summer._

“Who’s Yoko?”

Alucard came to for the second time that day. His back still ached, but it was only a dull ache, barely perceptible. The rest of his wounds had healed themselves while he’d rested. He moved slowly, deliberately. His head pounded, and his mouth was dry as a bone; he tried to talk and nearly had to peel his tongue off the roof of his mouth. All he managed to produce was an indistinct gurgle.

Alucard turned his head in the direction of his rescuer’s voice. An old man with rusty hair and a scruffy beard, hazel eyes peeking out from under a battered fedora, sat in the corner. Poking from his shabby leather longcoat was a gnarled and calloused hand, finger wrapped around the trigger of a handgun.

“Well? Who’s Yoko?”

Alucard must have been talking in his sleep. “She’s—”

“One of your victims?” the man in the battered longcoat asked, raising an eyebrow.

Alucard lifted his head and winced as vertigo turned his stomach. “Excuse me?”

“I saw a guy getting his shit kicked in by Captain Leatherdaddy and his Asshole Squad and thought I’d step in to help. Imagine my surprise when the man I rescue turns out to be a vampire.” The man gestured with his gun, keeping it trained on Alucard. “Dunno how much good this’ll do against you, but at least it’ll hurt.”

“I am not a vampire.”

“Pardon me if I don’t quite believe that,” the old man said. “You’ve got those big ol’ fangs in your mouth. All your injuries vanished in fifteen minutes flat. Probably don’t even have a reflection.”

Alucard tried to sit up, but all he could manage to do was send a fresh jolt of pain up his spine. “I am not a vampire,” he repeated, letting himself fall to the floor. The man had kept him alive this long despite his appearance, so obviously, he was prepared to listen to Alucard. “I’m a _dhampyr._ Half vampire. Half human. On my mother’s side.”

“What, did your mom hook up with Dracula?”

“No, she did not ‘hook up’ with Dracula. She—she married him.”

Alucard took a look around the room he’d woken up in. It looked to have once been a bedroom, but the furniture had been torn to shreds. An unlit fireplace sat to the side, its empty mouth an even deeper inky black than the shadows clinging to the corners of the room. The only source of light was an ancient and flickering light bulb screwed into a wall-mounted lamp, sans lampshade. “You carried me here all the way from the clock tower? I owe you my gratitude.”

“‘Dragged’ would be more like it.”

“At least I came here in one piece.” Alucard grimaced as his spine realigned itself with a quiet, painful _pop._ “My name is Alucard. May I have the honor of knowing your name, sir?”

“Your name’s _Alucard.”_

“Yes.”

“And your dad was _Dracula.”_

“Yes.”

The man began to laugh. “What the hell kind of dad gives his son his own name, but backwards?”

“I _chose_ what I would call myself as a symbol of my ideals. Also, it is rather rude to laugh at somebody’s name,” said Alucard. “What do you call yourself?”

“You can call me J,” the man said. “Just J.”

Alucard found himself letting out a shrill, involuntary wheeze, aware of his own hypocrisy. “That is not much of a name.”

J shrugged. “It’s all I got.”

Alucard pulled himself into a kneeling position, letting the room spin around his aching head. “J.” The name—or “name,” rather—sounded familiar. “You… you were one of Mina’s friends, were you not?” He remembered her calling his name before Solomon’s men had kidnapped her. “I knew her parents.”

“Mina?” J’s eyes lit up and his crooked mouth broke out into a smile. “Yeah, we got separated pretty early on. You must’ve come here to rescue her.”

“Yes, I—”

_The library went up like a tinderbox. Nobody could have survived._

“I did,” Alucard finished. “I did come here to rescue her.” _For all the good it did her._

“No luck so far?”

Alucard’s breath caught in his throat. “No—no luck so far.”

“Me neither.” J set the gun down and helped him up, an excited gleam coming to his eyes. Eyes, Alucard noticed, were hazel just like eyes he’d known once before. “Well, hey, two heads are better than one—let’s go find her!”

Alucard stood up, rising to his feet slowly enough to avoid worsening the pounding ache in his head. But he found he could not take a step forward. His legs were fine—the rest of his body was fine. He didn’t even have a scratch on him. And yet—

J grabbed his gun off the floor. “Well, come on.”

“Give me a minute.” Alucard braced his arm against the wall and sighed. Try as he might, he could think of no reason to continue.

All the centuries he’d lived. All for naught. For better or ill, he outlived everyone who’d crossed his path—friend, family, stranger alike. Here he was now, with nothing: Julius, Yoko, Mina, all consigned to oblivion. Like Richter and Maria, like Trevor and Sypha and Grant. Like his mother Lisa, whose dying words had carried him from fifteenth-century Wallachia to a twenty-first century beyond his imagination.

Was _this_ man, this J, a new friend? And would Alucard leave him behind to the mists of time, like everyone else in his life?

He shook his head. Alucard did not let maudlin sentimentality override his sense of duty. For God’s sake, what was _wrong_ with him?

“You all right, pal?” J shook him by the shoulder. “Do you guys have a biological impulse to brood or something?”

Alucard could only manage to let out a noncommittal grunt.

J kicked the door open, letting the dim light from the gloomy hallway flood into the much darker bedroom. “Let’s go, Angst-lucard. I’ll find you some necks to bite.”

 _Necks to bite._ Alucard involuntarily licked his lips. Yes, some fresh blood would hit the spot right now. And there was a plentiful source right here in the castle.

There were about five Neo-Ecclesian soldiers on the other side of the door, all pointing their guns into the room. Alucard ripped J’s gun from his hand. Finally—a chance to feel alive.

If Yoko and Mina were truly lost, then he would have his revenge on King Crimson.

–

King Crimson picked Soma’s coat up and held it in one hand by its furred collar, letting the hem of the coat pool on the cracked stone floor. “Aww. Isn’t that sweet,” he said to Mina with a simpering tone. “Lover-boy gave you his jacket. He’s close by, isn’t he?” He swung the coat over his shoulder. “I’ll just keep it off the floor for him so it doesn’t get dirty…er.”

With the other hand, he kept the blade of the Stardust Omen just barely touching Yoko’s throat. “You’d better hope Soma gets here soon,” he said. “I don’t know how much longer I can resist the urge…”

“Why are you doing this?” Mina asked.

King Crimson ignored her and addressed his homunculi. “Take them to the attic.” The homunculi dug their truncheons into Yoko’s back, Mina’s as well, and frog-marched the two of them up the crumbling stone steps leading to the attic.

Mina continued, her voice shaking. “What did Soma ever do to you? Why do you want him to die?”

“You mean you haven’t gotten what we’re here to do?” King Crimson cast a backward glance as Yoko and Mina ascended the stone staircase leading to the worn and tattered belfry upstairs, flickering torchlight bouncing off of his red glasses.

“There’s been a schism in the Agency, Yoko. Between those who follow the stated mission of Neo-Ecclesia and those who follow its true goals,” King Crimson continued, following Yoko and Mina up the staircase.

“ _Neo-Ecclesia?”_

“What, you didn’t think it was just called ‘The Agency,’ did you?”

Yoko reflected on her history lessons. Ecclesia had been an anti-Dracula program funded by the Catholic Church in the nineteenth century, dismantled after its leader, William Barlowe, had gone rogue. The program had spearheaded research into the use of magical glyphs as weapons against Dracula (the same research that had eventually led to the seals now tattooed on her palms).

“ _Neo_ -Ecclesia, which you and Alucard knew as ‘the Agency,’ was the only organization of its kind in which the senior leadership, from the very beginning, sought to use Dracula for their own ends—unlike the original Ecclesia. It got its start, if you’d believe it, as an offshoot of the Thule Society in Weimar Germany, and quickly attracted the attention of occult enthusiasts within the Third Reich. You’re familiar with Operation Paperclip and Unit 731? The Allies, in their victory, gladly poached scientific minds from the Axis powers for their own needs. This included the early seeds of Neo-Ecclesia. That’s how we grew and spread across the world.”

“Are you _serious?”_ Yoko asked.

“Oh, of course, any organization that claims to be against Dracula will gain more than its fair share of true believers.” King Crimson laughed. “The inmates running the asylum, so to speak. Director Barlowe and Solomon, for example, as well as myself. Now there are two sides of Neo-Ecclesia, and they’re at war.” King Crimson smiled. “One side wants to install a new Dracula, loyal to the agency’s powers-that-be. And then there’s us. King Solomon’s Court. The underdogs. The _resistance.”_

 _Yet you’re the one all but prancing around with swastikas,_ Yoko thought. “ You call yourselves a _resistance?”_ She felt betrayed. Her hand shook. How could this be true? Had everything she thought she’d known about her employers truly been a lie?

“Yes, the resistance. Standing in the way of every possible heir to Dracula’s throne, no matter who they are.” His voice grew louder. “Unfortunately, both sides want your pal Soma dead… because, well, as much as I hate to break it to you, boy’s got roughly a one-in-three chance of being Dracula. Maybe more.”

That’s _why they were so desperate to keep him out of here?_ Yoko thought as King Crimson’s servants forced her and Mina into sitting positions beside a worn, discolored brass church bell.

Mina strangled a scream in her throat. “That is a lie! Soma…”

“…Is a little hellion and a freak with a bad temper and a penchant for swallowing souls. Grade-A Dracula material, if you ask me.” King Crimson chuckled. “His parents ought to thank their lucky stars they dumped him in Japan, or he’d have ended up shooting up his school, I’m sure.”

“You don’t know him,” Mina countered.

“I don’t have to _know_ him to know what he _is._ Just be happy you found this out now—instead of waiting until he takes a quick nip at your neck on your wedding night!” King Crimson threw his arms open. “You’d best find a new man, little shrine maiden!”

“ _He’s just a friend!_ _”_ Mina protested. “I don’t even—”

The scarlet-coated homunculi at King Crimson’s beck and call held onto Yoko and Mina, wrapping their wrists together behind their backs with hard plastic zipties. Yoko tested the ties. They wouldn’t budge. Her wrist, injured in the fall she’d taken back in the library, started to throb again as the plastic bit into her skin.

–

Alucard shot the five soldiers in rapid succession, getting each one right between the eyes. As they all fell to the floor with bloody, coin-sized holes in their foreheads, he threw the smoking handgun back to J and tore the rifle from one of the corpses’ already-stiffening hands, gripping the barrel and wielding it like a mace.

“Uh, y-you know, pal,” J stammered as he caught the handgun by the barrel and nearly dropped it, “that’s not how you use a rifle.”

A sixth soldier ran around the corner of the hallway. Alucard rammed the rifle’s stock into his gut, and as he doubled over, brought it crashing down on his head.

His eyes stung, and his vision blurred and doubled as he stumbled over the soldier’s unconscious body. The homunculus had only been a snack, and it had been days since he’d last placated his bloodlust properly—he felt like a man who’d gone days without water.

Alucard pulled a loose cavalry saber from the wall (the castle was, as always, lousy with them) and charged. He cut down the troops in his way—but he couldn’t dodge all their shots, and hot lead tore through his leg with searing, excruciating pain as he forced himself through. His head was growing light, his fingers numb, his mouth dry, and he stumbled and tripped as he swung his sword; but all the soldiers fell to his blade nonetheless.

All but one, actually— _that_ one, the one he’d spared, he tackled and pinned to the floor, and as the hapless soldier squirmed and struggled, Alucard lifted the soldier’s facemask, exposing the soldier’s neck, bared his fangs, and bit in. The blood began to coat his tongue and as it ran down his chin he felt the most wonderful bliss. Objectively the taste was quite awful, but to him it was like the sweetest of nectars.

He rose, invigorated, fire running through his veins. He was _whole_ again, his human shell burned away, if only for a precious moment.

And he made use of that wholeness. With his wolf-like golden eyes, Alucard could nearly see where each soldier would fire at him before they could even draw their guns, and moved across the room with supernatural grace and inhuman reflexes, like a perfectly-choreographed dancer in a ballet, long hair so pale it was nearly silver streaming behind him. Bullets barely even touched him, but rather danced around his body if they even came close to him at all. And with every move he made and every step he took his blade swung, snuffing out life after life.

A hail of bullets came dangerously close to him, peppering Alucard’s shoulder and chewing the edges of his ear. A shot rang out and the combatant who’d gotten a hit on Alucard fell back. “I’ve got your back, Alucard!” J shouted out.

Alucard felt a strange sort of instant synergy with J as the two of them fought their way down the hallway. Although he’d only just met the man, something in his mannerisms, his body language, his voice struck a familiar chord within his memory.

–

One of the Blutritters crouched down next to Yoko to inspect its handiwork, and as she stared into the sockets of the homunculus’ black death’s-head facemask, she saw no eyes but sparking embers shadowed by its peaked Nazi officers’ cap. She suppressed a cringe.

“What’s wrong?” King Crimson asked Yoko as he fiddled with the bandoliers of red vials crossing his chest. “Don’t like Nazis?”

“No. _Nobody_ likes Nazis.” Yoko winced as one of the homunculi tightly bound her fingers together to stop her from using the magic seals on her palms (as if she could now). Any tighter and it could have snapped them like twigs.

“Oh, Miss Belnades, you’re hurting my feelings! At least I’m _honest_ about being a Nazi. Besides, we actually have a lot in common. You see, the bad guys want a Dracula who’s on their side. But guys like me? Well, we don’t want a Dracula at all. _”_

“We don’t have a thing in common,” Yoko spat. One of her ancestors—her great-grandfather on her father’s side—had barely lived through the Nazi occupation of France… not that she would bother mentioning it to her captor. “You already want to bring _one_ evil back from the dead. Dracula would just be more competition for you, wouldn’t he?”

“Excuse me?” King Crimson pulled his glasses off and pocketed them, smiling at Yoko’s defiance. “You know, you remind me so much of a certain someone. A man you know—or, uh, _knew._ He’s dead now.”

 _Alucard?_ Yoko forced an uneasy grin. _He wouldn’t dare succumb to the likes of you._

“The way Solomon tells it, he screamed and begged for mercy at the end.” King Crimson gave his stolen sword a few experimental swings, tracing electric arcs in the air and filling Yoko’s nostrils with the sharp smell of burnt ozone. “You’d think he were a glacier, but… he melted like a little snowflake.” He held the blade to her cheek and Yoko felt her skin burn at even so slight a touch. “Will you melt as easily…?” He began to gently drag the blade up.

All thoughts of bravery fled from her mind, replaced with searing pain. _Oh, Christ almighty,_ Yoko thought, helpless and trapped, _he’s going to burn my eye out…_ If she had the power to speak she would have said anything to make him stop.

After an agonizing eternity passed by in a second, King Crimson smiled and pulled the blade away, satisfied immensely by the fear and helplessness he’d seen reflected in her face. The shallow, steaming cut on Yoko’s cheek smelled like burnt pork. She made a plea to God that that if she got out of this in one piece, she would never eat ham or bacon again. In fact, she’d keep kosher.

King Crimson gazed around the chapel from his vantage point in the belfry and sighed. “Oh, dear. I really thought Soma would be here by now. I was really looking forward to killing him while you two watched.” He scratched his chin. “Or, would I kill you two while _he_ watched? Which sounds more fun to you?”

“ _KING CRIMSON!”_

–

As the chaotic hall settled into peace and order, Alucard relaxed, letting his enhanced vampiric constitution push the embedded bullets out of his shoulder and stitch the wounds together before the seal marring his chest reverted him back to his lesser, weaker form. Out of morbid curiosity, he ambled over to the body of the soldier whose blood he’d drained and pulled his black balaclava off.

He saw the face of a young man with acne-scarred skin, a young man around the same age as Soma Cruz, his eyes wide open and face frozen, stricken with terror. The blood curdled in Alucard’s stomach. He’d robbed a child of life and for what? For a momentary respite from this prison of flesh he’d been consigned to? Had that been worth defiling the body and dirtying the soul of a boy scarcely old enough to join this army?

This dead boy’s face reminded him of Julius. The young vampire slayer, though prodigious in his skills and easily surpassing all of those Alucard had ever known, had had quite the babyface back in 1999. His mustache had looked like dirt speckled across his upper lip; it had looked absolutely hideous and everybody had told him so. Julius had been inordinately proud of it anyway.

Had this boy been anything like his dear, departed friend?

J put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, Al. Snap out of it. It’s kill or be killed out here. Now come on. Let’s go find your buddies.”

Alucard nearly laughed. Nobody had called him “Al” since…

No.

It couldn’t be.

Alucard took a deep breath. “J… Could you tell me a little more about yourself? Your _full_ name, perhaps?”

“The name’s J,” J repeated to Alucard. “Just J. That’s all I’ve got.”

“Hmm. Is that so?”

“I’m telling you, man. That’s it. Just the letter.”

“Were your parents so stingy,” Alucard asked, “they could permit you only a single letter?” J. _Julius._ Alucard could scarcely believe it—and if this stranger were his old friend, why would he pretend not to know him? He needed to know more about this man.

J grew sick of Alucard’s badgering. “Look. I woke up on August 25, 1999, in a US military hospital in Okinawa. Didn’t remember anything before that. All I had was a hundred yen in my pocket and a letter in my head.” He shrugged. “No papers. No ID. That’s it. At last, you’ve figured out the secret of the J. Good for you.”

“You were in Japan… in August, 1999?”

“Yeah. Why? Were you?”

“I was, in fact.” Alucard gingerly stepped over the corpse of the young soldier he’d drained. “And that was your earliest memory?” He guessed J’s age from his appearance. The man had had a hard life, it seemed, and had not aged gracefully, but Alucard could estimate J was between fifty-five and sixty-five. And so, thirty-six years ago, he would have been in his early twenties… or late teens.

The same age Julius had been.

“Yes, Alucard, that was my earliest memory.” J sighed. “If you have a point, Al, I’d suggest you come to it sooner rather than later.”

“Does the name… ‘Julius Belmont’ ring a bell?”

J pondered it for a minute. “Nah. Pretty name, though.”

“ _Murderer!”_

A one-armed man walked down the floor, blood still dripping from his shorn-off elbow and splattering on the floor. A cloth tourniquet around his bicep stemmed the bleeding. His hair, once red, was now a steely gray flecked with rusty reddish-orange, and hung lank and thinning from his head. In his remaining hand he held the coiled Vampire Killer. “How like your father, Alucard.”

_Solomon._

–

King Crimson turned his head as the outburst echoed across the chapel; Yoko and Mina craned their necks.

Standing at the foot of the staircase, whip-sword in hand, was Soma Cruz. He stood tall, although his shoulders quaked in silent fury, and his eyes blazed from under unruly bangs of snow-white hair.

“Down here, you Nazi hipster John Lennon imitation.” He threw out his free hand, jabbing an accusing finger at King Crimson. “You’re an insult to the memory of Robert Fripp. So do me a favor, Adolf. Throw yourself off those stairs and save me the trouble of doing it for you!”

King Crimson stepped to the side, standing precariously at the edge of the stone steps. There were no railings to speak of, but he didn’t seem at all concerned about falling. “Blutritters!” he called out. _“Attack!”_

His quartet rushed down the staircase, twisted blood-blades springing from their wrists as their gleaming black boots pounded against the steps. King Crimson stumbled a bit as they passed by, windmilled his arms a bit, but righted himself with an embarrassed grin.

–

Solomon unfurled his whip with one jerk of his hand, cracking it against the floor and leaving a deep furrow. “You! You’re nothing but a predator!”

He lashed out with the whip, tearing paper from the walls as its tip flew from one side of the hallway to the other. The whip’s razor-sharp edge barely brushed the tip of Alucard’s nose, stinging it, as he leaped back, pulling J out of danger along with him. The two of them skidded across the floor.

“You, spawn of darkness,” Solomon growled, “have had your last meal. I do hope you’ve enjoyed it.” He cracked the whip again, shattering a row of gas lamps set into the wall and bathing the hallway in darkness. “Prepare yourself, Alucard. You’re never going to see your so-called dear friend Julius again. Because when I kill you, I will send you to the depths of Hell for all eternity!”

The first strike of the whip tore Alucard’s pilfered sword from his hands; the second snapped it in two as it flew through the air; the third and all other subsequent whiplashes, though, were all meant for Alucard.

Alucard barely avoided each lash of the whip through the gloomy hallway as Solomon bore down on him with unparalleled fury. He felt so slow and sluggish—and on the other hand Solomon, despite the loss of his arm, despite the rapid deterioration of his body as his unworthy hands grasped the Vampire Killer, moved with a speed no mortal should be capable of. It was as if sheer rage had replaced his blood with amphetamines.

Alucard was outmatched—at least, for now. Unless he could exploit Solomon’s fragile psychology. To his side, he spied an armored statue, a little grimy, but still polished to a mirrored shine. He could see the wall behind him reflected in its burnished steel breastplate and shield. It reminded Alucard of Perseus and the gorgon Medusa.

–

The homunculi—the Blutritters—hurried down the staircase two by two. Soma’s blade shot out, telescoping as its segments unlatched and whipped around in a twisting arc; the Blutritters in front deflected it with their blades and Soma pressed onward as the sword extended to its limits and snapped back. He ducked as the Blutritters swung their blades and slipped between the two in front. Caught between all four homunculi, Soma swung his blade in a shining arc and cut all four down in one stroke. They popped like water balloons, splattering blood across the chapel.

Soma kept going, the telescoping blade curling behind him as if it had a life and a will of its own while its owner charged forward with a single-minded determination. This was _easy._ And yet he was grinning so widely from the thrill of combat that his cheeks hurt. He laughed as he ascended the staircase two steps at a time. _“Tell me that’s not all you’ve got!”_ he taunted. There was something inside him that wanted a _fight_ with this Nazi bastard. It would make beating him into a pulp all the more satisfying.

King Crimson stumbled up the staircase and drew two vials of red liquid from his bandoliers. Tossing them in the air, he cleanly bisected both with his black blade, and the freed blood formed into two more blood-men in midair; they landed right on top of Soma.

One Blutritter’s boot stomped onto Soma’s shoulder as it fell through the air, knocking him back; the second Blutritter dug a truncheon into his stomach, knocking the wind out of him. His sword fell from his hand and clattered down the steps as the force of the impact drove the strength from his body. Soma ducked as the Blutritter who’d stepped on him landed on the steps behind him and thrust out its blood-sword, and the blade cut right into the second one’s black mask, loosing a spew of blood.

Soma kicked the remaining homunculus’ legs out from under it and pushed it down the staircase, and it tumbled head over heels, shattering like a watermelon when its crumpled body finally hit the floor. He wiped his brow and took a moment to catch his breath as King Crimson took a few more halting steps up the staircase.

Soma could see the fear in King Crimson’s eyes. _Good._ The red-coated Nazi fanboy drew two more vials from his chest and tossed them in the air, slicing them apart and spilling their red liquid as they tumbled through the air. _More Nazi cosplayers to chop up? Fine by me!_ He reached back to pick up his sword, expecting the blood in the air to transform into human shapes.

But instead, it splashed against the side of his face, and half the world around Soma instantly went black as eye and his skin began to burn. He felt like he’d gotten an eyeful of pepper spray, except worse. Whatever it was—it _hurt,_ enough to make him scream.

–

“Solomon.” Alucard pulled the spear and shield from an armor statue and held up the shield. “Look at yourself. The Vampire Killer is draining your life—!”

“Never have I ever felt more alive!” The whip struck against the shield with enough force to numb Alucard’s arm. He couldn’t even tell if Solomon had bothered to look—he obviously wasn’t interested in discussing anything that could contradict his delusion.

The man could have easily been of sound mind and thought himself a Belmont—the simple act of a parent or guardian lying to him throughout his life, a state of genealogical bewilderment. But to reject evidence to the contrary so vehemently was proof that Solomon was not merely misled, but brainwashed—or insane.

Alucard dodged the next strike, leaping into the air and rebounding against the wall, pivoting on one foot. He got behind Solomon and thrust with the spear; Solomon lashed out with his foot and caught Alucard against the chin. The spear pierced Solomon’s bicep just above his hastily-applied tourniquet as Alucard hit the floor.

The whip lashed against the floor, cracking the stone tiles apart and sending razor-sharp fragments through the air. Alucard rolled out of the way, catching Solomon in the crook of his knee with his foot and sending him to the floor.

Solomon rebounded quickly from the attack and lashed out at Alucard again and again, hitting his shield and leaving deep dents and divots in its surface until Alucard could barely feel his arm on the other side of the steel sheet. The shield slipped off his arm as Solomon pressed on.

J grabbed Alucard by the back of his collar and pulled him out of danger just as the whip cut through his forehead, severing a lock of his hair. Had Alucard lingered a second longer, he’d have been scalped, or worse. As Alucard fell to the floor, J shot at Solomon, who swatted every bullet from the air with his whip.

Every bullet but one.

It hit Solomon in the left shoulder, the force tossing him back like a ragdoll. It granted Alucard and J a momentary reprieve.

“Okay,” J gasped as he helped Alucard duck behind the corner of the hall, “Gotta hand it to that guy, he’s pretty good.”

Solomon _was._ He was easily good enough to be Julius’s son, were that not impossible. And worse, Alucard was unarmed and defenseless.

“He’s good,” Alucard agreed, “but he’s dying.” He and J ran deeper into the castle.

“What, like he’s got cancer or something? I can’t beat up a guy who has cancer—”

“That whip—the Vampire Killer—is a holy weapon, bound by blood to a specific clan.” Alucard could hear Solomon’s raging bellows echoing through the castle. They neither grew nor decreased in volume—he was following Alucard, and staying a consistent distance behind. “Were someone not of that bloodline to wield the whip, it would siphon the life from their body.”

“So why’s he using it? Isn’t there an easier way to kill a vampire? Swords dipped in salt or holy water, or little batarang things shaped like crosses, stuff like that?”

“Because he’s delusional. Beyond reason.”

“Yeah, Al, I think I know what ‘delusional’ means.”

–

Soma gritted his teeth as the pain sank deep into his skin, slipping and stumbling on the staircase. He tried to wipe whatever the liquid was out of his eye with his sleeve, but to no avail. It just kept burning—and not just his eye, but the side of his face, too.

_Acid. That’s what it has to be. Asshole filled some of his test tubes with acid instead of his blood! God dammit!_

King Crimson started to laugh. “I know what you’re thinking right now, Soma.” He started to walk down the staircase, drawing a few more vials from his bandoliers. “You’re thinking, ‘that bastard just threw acid in my face!’ Right?”

Soma staggered to his feet as the pain grew worse. Even the tears streaming from his injured eye felt like fire on his cheek. _What if they aren’t tears,_ he wondered. _What if my eye is melting and this is all the juice from it pouring out of my socket?_ He kept a tight grip on his sword. What was he going to do? Was there a soul in his collection that could restore his eye?

“Well, I’ve got good news, and I’ve got bad news.” King Crimson laughed. “The good news is, that wasn’t acid. The bad news—it was holy water!”

 _Holy water?_ Soma gagged. That meant—

“Still don’t believe me, Mina?” King Crimson called out. “What a shame, your dear friend is a demonic fiend!”

Soma lunged forward, whipping his sword in another elastic arc. King Crimson brought his black blade up, the edge of the blade sparking with blue light.

“ _Soma, look out! That sword—!”_

 _If I really am Dracula,_ Soma thought, his mind racing, _then I—_

The black blade swung, tracing an arc of electric blue through the air and bringing with it the sharp smell of burnt ozone and an otherworldly hum. Half of Soma’s sword flew through the air, clattering against and shattering one of the chapel’s tall stained-glass windows; the other half his hand still clung to—although Soma no longer held the blade.

Soma didn’t realize it at first. It wasn’t until he tried to swing the sword and saw the smoking, bleeding stump of his wrist.

_He cut off my hand._

One clean stroke of that black blade had both cleft Soma’s sword in twain and lopped off his hand entirely.

_He cut off my hand!_

Despite the blow he’d taken, Soma’s momentum still carried him forward, up the staircase, toward King Crimson. And he still had one hand that was just as eager to rip that bastard’s heart out of his chest.

Soma’s left hand crumpled King Crimson’s nose, blood flowing across his knuckles. The black sword fell from King Crimson’s grip, bounced on the stone steps at his feet, and fell down to the floor. Both fighters now disarmed, Soma fell on top of King Crimson, raising his fist to strike him again. But King Crimson was upon him before Soma’s brain could catch up, his hands wrapped around Soma’s throat, fingers growing tighter and tighter, squeezing his windpipe. The strength began to drain out of Soma’s body; his arms and legs felt like lead weights.

–

Alucard and J ran into an area of the castle ramparts exposed to the open air, bathed in the light of the giant blood moon overhead as it peeked through the thick and roiling stormclouds. Misty rain pattered against the slick stone, and Alucard rummaged through the ramparts for something, anything to use as a weapon.

J raised his gun at the sight of four mercenary soldiers taking shelter under an awning; at the sight of him and Alucard the soldiers all threw down their weapons and threw up their hands. Except for one of the soldiers. He just threw up.

“Please, don’t kill us!” one of them, who might have been the group’s leader, called out. “We surrender! We’re not with Green Dolphin anymore!”

“We’re with Hammer and the Vanguard now!” one of the soldiers piped up as they helped the one with the weak stomach. The names—Hammer, Vanguard—meant nothing to Alucard, but it worried him there might be _yet another_ faction in play here. Keeping up with this was mentally exhausting.

The de-facto leader smacked him. “Idiot! What if these guys wanna kill _them,_ too?”

“Word of your reputation really gets around, Al,” J mused.

Alucard spied a katana, its hilt worn and battered but its blade shining like new. It was not a holy sword, or a cursed blade. It was just a good, normal sword. Not too heavy, not too light. Not a sword he’d have wielded by choice, but it felt at home in his hands. It was no Masamune, and it certainly wasn’t anywhere near as sharp or light as the Stardust Omen, but it would serve him well all the same.

He ignored how thirsty he was at the sight of those men. Each one would provide a few minutes of time in his true form apiece, and if he rationed them…

Alucard shook his head. No. _That_ would be thinking like his father. “Leave this place,” he warned the soldiers, holding his sword aloft, “while you still have legs to carry you.”

The soldiers scrambled off, leaving their weapons behind.

Alucard scanned the area. It was wide-open, but there were nooks, crannies, alcoves of sorts that could make for a fruitful ambush when Solomon pursued him here. “Lay low. We can, as one might say, ‘get the drop’ on Solomon.”

J fumbled with a spare clip salvaged from one of the soldier’s droppings and reloaded his sidearm. “That guy: I’m guessing he’s got your number because of the whole ‘son of Dracula’ thing?”

“Nothing so simple.” Alucard readied his blade. With a sword in his hand—a good sword—and with the temptation to slake his thirst waning, he felt _almost_ like his old self. Ironic how imprisonment in this body made him feel _more_ like a vile creature of the night, despite how it limited his dark powers. “He believes I killed his father.”

“ _Did_ you?”

Blood mixed with rainwater ran down his face. “Sometimes I ask myself the same thing.”

Before J or Alucard could prepare an ambush, Solomon stepped through the threshold, whip in hand. _“Don’t you run away,”_ he growled.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STAND MASTER: SOLOMON BELMONT  
> STAND NAME: [QUADROPHENIA]


	25. In the Court of the Crimson King, Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, an unlikely ally comes to Soma's rescue as Alucard completes one of his missions. Well, sort of.

“I didn’t want to kill you, Soma.”

King Crimson’s face and voice started to grow muddy and indistinct in Soma’s ears, as if he were seeing and hearing through packed balls of gauze.

“From the moment we confirmed what you were, _I_ wanted to let you off easy,” King Crimson growled. _“But you_ had _to_ _kill Buck… you_ had _to_ _make things hard for us…_ _you… white-haired… freak…_ _”_

Soma struggled for air, gasping as his lungs started to burn, scrabbling at King Crimson’s arm and digging his fingernails into his attacker’s forearm as King Crimson stood up, forcing Soma onto his knees. _This can’t be real. This can’t be happening. I’m not a vampire, I’m not Dracula,_ he wanted to scream. _I’m a human_ _being_ _!_

“ _Soma!”_ Mina’s voice rang in his ears. He couldn’t tell if it was real or if he’d imagined it—King Crimson’s voice was like a light through thick fog, but this was clear as a bell, like the chimes at the Hakuba Shrine on a warm spring day.

“ _Mina!”_ He’d meant to shout—but it came from his crushed throat as a tortured whisper. Soma stretched out his hand as his body started to grow numb, starting with his fingertips—they felt like they’d been pumped full of antique TV static. But his fingers, or what little of them still had feeling in them, closed around something soft and furry as he reached up. He’d grabbed the collar of his coat, draped over King Crimson’s shoulder.

King Crimson’s voice slipped into his ears. _“Say your prayers, Soma—as if God will answer them!”_

Soma yanked at the coat and with his last ounce of strength, pulled it over King Crimson’s head. As King Crimson’s grip around his neck loosened in his surprise—sweet, precious oxygen!—Soma tore himself free. Life-giving air flowing into his burning lungs, filling his muscles with renewed strength as Soma threw himself off the staircase.

Soma hit the floor shoulder-first, coughing and hacking and gasping as he rubbed his bruised throat and draped his coat over his shoulders. He clutched at his severed wrist. There was blood, but hardly any of it; the black blade’s surface had been so hot as to nearly cauterize the wound. It didn’t hurt—at least no more than his aching and bruised neck did—but there was a dull, numb throbbing just below where the blade had sliced off his hand that was sure to get worse with time. A moan escaped his lips. _“Mina…”_

–

“I have no intention of running.” Alucard removed what was left of his jacket as he faced off against Solomon, although in fairness there wasn’t much left of his shirt or waistcoat beneath it either. He had hoped to make this a war of attrition and bide his time until the impostor dropped dead, but if Solomon wished it, he would readily fight head-on, especially with a reliable sword at his side.

Sword met whip, drawing sparks.

“This is fate, Alucard! That one of our bloodlines would destroy the other!” Solomon’s whip moved in long, unpredictable arcs, freed from the constraints of the narrow hallways. “Belmont or Tepes—Only one may live on!”

Alucard felt the whip bite into his leg just below his knee. “That was why you let my father die!” Solomon continued. “To put an end to the greatest threat to your existence!”

With the reverse side of his katana Alucard deflected the next attack, but Solomon’s increased range of attack kept him at bay. “Never have I had any intention of following in my father’s footsteps,” he retorted. “Were you truly your father’s son, you would know that!”

Enraged, Solomon pressed closer. Yes—all it took was a snide comment, a refutation of his delusion, to give him incentive to abandon his greatest advantage. “Then why were you drawn to this castle?” Solomon snarled.

The whip snapped across Alucard’s left shoulder, tearing through muscles and ligaments, scratching bone, dislocating the shoulder joint as a wave of pain so intense it made his arm go numb shot through his body. Alucard’s blade, in return, bit into Solomon’s side—unfortunately, nowhere that would be immediately lethal, but perhaps Alucard had given him a painful impromptu appendectomy.

“I was not ‘drawn’ to it.” Alucard gritted his teeth as he shoved the blade deeper, down to the hilt. Solomon smacked the Vampire Killer against Alucard’s cheek, but in such close quarters, he could use it only as a bludgeon, not a whip. All the same, it burned. “I came here to find an old friend.”

Solomon pulled away from Alucard, the bloodstained blade tearing from his side. Blood poured in great burgundy gouts from the hole. “You have many friends in this castle,” Solomon sputtered through gritted teeth, “don’t you, Alucard? Subjects willing to serve at your beck and call!”

“ _I came here for your father!”_

“ _To make certain he was dead?_ _”_ The next lash of the whip wrapped around Alucard’s sword arm as his injured left arm hung limp at his side. He yanked his arm, pulling Solomon forward, and cut into his thigh. Solomon retaliated, driving his other leg into Alucard’s stomach.

“ _You delusional ass,_ listen _to me!”_

Solomon cracked his forehead against Alucard’s—a futile gesture. Yet Alucard couldn’t help but stumble backward as Solomon faced him with unbridled determination. His eyes were still familiar. They were many things, but _not_ the eyes of a Belmont.

Yet, Alucard had seen them before.

But not on Solomon Graves.

–

Mina struggled against the zip ties binding her hands behind her back, gasping with exertion. She’d seen Soma lose his hand; she’d seen him plummet to the floor. And what’s more, she’d found out what Yoko had only suspected until now.

Yoko had suspected that Soma may have been connected to Dracula’s castle ever since he’d met up with her and Mina in the gardens and shown his penchant for taking and commanding the souls of others. Alucard had probably figured it out from the word “go.” But maybe he hadn’t told her because he hadn’t been sure enough…

[It’s okay, Mina,] Yoko told her as King Crimson made his way down the staircase. [Soma will be fine.] But she couldn’t deny that King Crimson had him on the ropes. _Is there anything we can do?_

Yoko tested the zip ties binding her wrists. If she’d positioned her wrists just right while they’d been tying her up, she could have slipped out of them whenever she’d wished, but she hadn’t been thinking about that. Zip ties weren’t unbreakable, though, and Yoko thanked her lucky stars King Crimson was exactly the kind of self-obsessed, short-sighted idiot who normally fell in with fascist crowds. He skimped on the important things. His little blood-born minions should have been conjured with proper handcuffs.

[Mina, do you still have that salt shaker?] she asked.

Mina nodded.

[Does it have anything in it?]

[A little bit.]

[And do you know how to get out of zip ties?]

[M-Miss Yoko, what kind of girl do you think I am?] Mina asked, scandalized.

[Don’t worry, it’s not hard.] Although with the pain in her broken wrist still growing, Yoko couldn’t try it herself. [I’ll walk you through it.]

[O-Okay.]

Escaping from zip ties wasn’t particularly difficult—at least as long as they were the store-bought stuff and didn’t have metal string embedded in the plastic. Yoko hadn’t learned how to break them while interning under Alucard—rather, she’d learned it in a self-defense class at college. That next summer, when she’d returned to Alucard’s side, she’d been (in hindsight) adorably eager to show off. Alucard had been indignant that the Agency itself hadn’t taught her such a useful skill.

[Raise your arms as far as you can.]

Mina struggled, only managing to raise her arms about halfway above her back, straining against her shoulders. [T-this good enough?]

[Now bring them down as hard as you can.]

Mina did so. It didn’t work.

[Try again.]

It didn’t work. Again. Mina’s face was looking pallid (whether from the exertion or the bite, Yoko couldn’t be sure).

[It’s okay. There’s more than one way to disrobe a tiger.]

[Excuse me?]

“Skin a cat.” Yoko looked around the dingy, dimly-lit belfry, scanning for any sort of tiny scrap of metal or wood she could use to lift the zip tie’s locking bar. It would be hard to use with both hands behind her back, but she might have been able to pick Mina’s zip ties open blind through trial and error.

[I can do it.]

The ferocity of Mina’s declaration took Yoko by surprise.

The young maiden raised her arms, gritting her teeth, and brought them down again. [Soma’s always been there for me. What kind of a friend would I be to him,] she asked, bringing her arms down again and again, [if all he did was give, and all I did was take?]

–

Alucard remembered.

“ _My son, Sol Barlowe,” the Director said, beaming with pride as he gestured to the picture of the grinning young man. “He’s an administrative technician here right now, but he hopes to be a field agent. Perhaps someday you and he will work together, Alucard.”_

Solomon Graves, too, had been just as much an alias as Solomon Belmont.

“ _Sol,”_ Alucard whispered.

Solomon flinched as if wounded by the utterance.

“ _Sol Barlowe.”_ Alucard’s own realization had stunned him. _“Son of Ephram Barlowe… Good heavens, what—what has your father_ done _to you?”_

When had Sol become Solomon Graves, and when had Solomon Graves come to believe his name was Solomon Belmont? _How?_ And most frightening… _why?_

Sol began to tremble, his hands shaking like dying leaves in an autumn breeze.

Alucard lowered his sword and offered Sol his hand. “It _is_ you, isn’t it?” _You… you were brainwashed, your personality_ _and past_ _wiped away. Your own father—!_ “I am so sorry, Sol. I truly weep for you now, poor child. Let us put aside our differences—”

It was as if Sol had not even heard him. “You’re the same kind of monster as your father!” Sol drove his fist into Alucard’s face, pushing his thumb against Alucard’s eye while he beat the handle of the whip against his chest. “Draining blood from innocents to sate your thirst!” He threw Alucard to the ground, twisting his arm as he dug his knee into his back and tried his best with one hand to wrap the whip back around Alucard’s neck. “Don’t you deny it: it’s in your nature to treat us as cattle! But this time, the cattle will brand _you…”_

Alucard struggled to stay conscious with the whip burning through his neck yet again. It was true he _was_ his father’s son, but was a lifetime spent trying to walk the opposite path going to end here in this castle, with him murdered over a misunderstanding?

“ _Sol!”_ he gurgled. _“Sol, listen to me! You are not yourself—”_

Shots rang out from behind Alucard, forcing Sol to draw back. Freed, Alucard pressed onward. The false Belmont struggled to both avoid and deflect J’s shots and keep Alucard at a safe distance. As one of the shots pierced the hem of Sol’s coat, he lashed the whip upward, curling its tip around the statue of a gargoyle high up on the castle walls and pulling himself aloft. Sol spun around Alucard as he struck where Sol had only moments before stood and planted a heavy boot on Alucard’s back.

Alucard fell to the rain-slicked floor and rolled to his feet as Solomon swung through the air, landing right behind J. In one smooth motion, as Sol’s boots hit the floor, the whip uncurled and whistled through the air. J whirled around, ready to shoot, but Sol kicked the gun out of his hands. His whip came around and cut deep into J’s arm, drawing blood.

“ _Julius!”_ Alucard rushed forward, sword in hand. Sol saw him approach and drew the whip—

But it went taut.

–

King Crimson stomped down the stairs after Soma. There’d be no time to rest. He’d be coming for that black sword of his next, and then he’d come after Soma…

Soma heard the sound of shattering glass to his right—in his blind spot. More blood-men. With the shape he was in now, even these drones would be able to finish him off. He staggered away from the staircase, ducking between two of the stained and dusty pews and crawling underneath them. If he were lucky, maybe these Gestapo cosplayers lacked the talent for “hide and seek.”

As he pulled himself along the floor, Soma’s eye caught something just ahead. A discarded glove. No, not a glove, a hand—his _hand._

He reached out for it and missed. Damn—no more depth perception. _If Asriel were here right now, he’d have some tips for me._ He got it on the second try.

 _All right. Here goes nothing._ Soma closed his eyes and retreated into his soul library, hastily scanning over his collection. Where’d he put the spider silk soul?

The stomp of jackboots against stone jerked Soma from his retreat, and he pulled himself along the ground just as a spiny red blade sank into the floor where his ankles had been a moment before. Soma hastily pulled himself to his feet and booked it, holding his hand in his other hand. One of the Nazi homunculi’s truncheons swung over his head; another slammed into the inside of his elbow, sending a fuzzy electric jolt all the way to his shoulder.

Soma dashed behind an ornamental fluted column, caught his breath—one of the homunculi caught up with him in a flash and swung its blood-blade; Soma ducked and the blade cut into the column and stuck there. With the homunculus struggling with the blade, Soma rammed his shoulder into its chest and charged, carrying its body in front of him like a human shield. One of the other homunculi—there were two more—rushed at him. Soma threw his improvised meat-shield (blood-shield?) at it, and the two drone-soldiers collapsed in a heap.

That left one more homunculus. Soma shoved his severed hand into his jacket pocket, grabbed a hymnal from one of the pews, and winged it at the Blutritter’s head. It splattered like a watermelon.

–

J had wrapped his hands around the Vampire Killer’s braided leather thong and held tight, blood welling up between his fingers and dripping down his knuckles. The Vampire Killer was an incomparable weapon that could kill with but the lightest of touches, but only against the undead and the unholy. J was neither, and against him, the Vampire Killer was merely another whip—dangerous, but far less so.

J gritted his teeth as Sol pulled away from him and the whip slid out of his blood-slicked grasp, cracking against Alucard’s stomach before he could strike Sol down. Alucard was thrown through the air and hit the wall of the castle, dislodging a handful of bricks as his back smacked into the wall.

Alucard hit the floor facedown, his abdomen burning where the whip had caught lengthwise against it. There was little left of his armored vest, let alone his fine black suit; when the Vampire Killer sensed the blood of an unhallowed being such as himself, even the strongest armor could only do so much against its holy bite. Blood dripped between his fingers as he clutched at the steaming, charred wound, propping himself up on his elbow and forearm.

As Sol ran toward Alucard, J ran for his gun, got a bead on Sol, and fired.

Lightning forked through the clouds above. The sound of thunder merged with the roar of the gun, and Solomon’s ear vanished in a spray of blood. The light vanished from his eyes, and Sol fell to the ground facedown, his face grinding against the floor as he skidded across the rain-slicked stone tiles.

J ran to Sol’s side with his gun still drawn and checked the body, feeling Solomon’s neck for a pulse.

Alucard coughed and cleared his throat. “Is he…?”

J nodded. “The whip must have sucked him dry right then and there.”

Alucard examined the withered, wretched corpse and confirmed there was no pulse. _Sol Barlowe, you poor boy. The Agency I was forced to work for truly_ is _evil incarnate—as evil as anything in this godforsaken castle._

–

Finally, the zip tie snapped, and Mina pulled her hands free, gazing in bemused amazement at her own strength. [I did it!]

Yoko let out an enthused, stressed grin. [Great! Now untie me. All you have to do is lift the locking bar and slide the tab out.]

Mina struggled with Yoko’s ties for a bit, and after a few seconds, the plastic cutting into Yoko’s wrists fell away, soothing her wrists. She then dropped the salt shaker into Yoko’s hand.

Yoko pulled her hands out from behind her back. The salt shaker was nearly empty, but there was still some salt left in it. She peered down through a splintered hole in the belfry’s warped wooden floor and spied the chapel’s baptismal font, filled with blasphemously brackish standing water.

The salt shaker tumbled out of Yoko’s hand as she split her thumb on her teeth and set to work tracing an alchemist’s circle on the wood floor in her own blood. She took her time, tracing out the symbols painstakingly. There were a lot of variables to account for here… and if she got anything wrong, this whole thing would blow up in her face. Literally.

But she wouldn’t get anything wrong. Unlike the vast majority of alchemists throughout human history, Yoko had a modern education the likes of which any alchemist in antiquity would have sold his soul for.

And really, what she was doing here was child’s play.

–

Soma ducked behind the baptismal font as King Crimson came out swinging his sword. _“Oh, Soma!”_ he called out in a singsong voice. _“Come out and play!”_

Soma browsed his soul library, picked out the spider soul, and hit the floor, laying down his severed hand and holding his wrist up to it. It was surreal seeing his hand lying there, palm up, a noticeable gap of empty air between it and his wrist. _I hope to god this doesn’t screw me up even worse,_ he thought, as he produced a thin, strong line of sticky spider silk from his index fingernail—the one still attached to his body—and started sewing his hand back to his wrist.

His intuition told him it would work. The rest of Soma told him he was being a huge idiot and would probably be dead within a few seconds. He finished the stitching around his wrist, closing the wound. _If this works, I’ll start going to church._

An electric jolt went up Soma’s arm, and all of his fingers twitched and spasmed at once. _Holy shit. Glory, glory, hallelujah!_

King Crimson leaped atop the baptismal font’s marbled edge swinging his sword. His nose was a crushed red mess, and a ragged goatee of blood dripping down his chin. _“There you are, you little shit!”_

Soma dashed out of the way of King Crimson’s next slash, grabbing an ornamental candle stand nearly as tall as he was off the floor. The black blade effortlessly cut it in half, leaving Soma with one half of the golden rod in each hand.

“I love this sword!” King Crimson shouted out with glee as Soma stumbled further and further backward. “So light, a kid could wave it around! Cuts through everything like butter! I’m chopping up guys like Kylo Ren up in here!”

 _You’re not doing a very good job of it,_ Soma thought as he narrowly avoided getting his lungs sliced open (he didn’t think spider silk surgery could fix that).

“ _Shut up!”_ King Crimson nearly took off Soma’s nose next.

“ _What?”_ Soma hadn’t said anything.

King Crimson put his hand to his throat. _“Shut the hell up about anime already!”_ he bellowed.

Soma took advantage of the momentary distraction to whack King Crimson on the wrist with one of the halves of his candle stand, nearly knocking the black sword out of his hand. But King Crimson held fast to the blade and nearly took off Soma’s head in retaliation.

“ _I don’t give a shit about Mew Mew Kissy Cutie 2 or whatever it_ _is_ _,”_ King Crimson continued, _“but if you don’t stop talking about_ _how much it sucks_ _I’m gonna find you, whoever you are, wherever you are, and ram this sword down your throat and roast you from the inside out—”_

It was Doctor Alphys on the other end. Of all the angels that could have intervened on Soma’s behalf, a stuttering otaku was perhaps the least predictable.

With the flared base of the stand, Soma bashed King Crimson in the stomach, sending him tumbling to the floor. King Crimson paused to dig the receiver he’d stolen out of his ear and throw it across the room, giving Soma just enough time to slip away.

–

Her work done, Yoko set the salt shaker down in the center of the circle. The bloody paths traced on the wood floor lit up with an unearthly glow, and a foggy, pale yellow-green gas filled the shaker’s glass body and began to seep from the tiny holes in the shaker’s cap.

Salt: sodium chloride. Separate the two and you end up with sodium, a volatile metal, and toxic chlorine gas. Sodium reacted violently with water.

And there was a whole lot of water right below her.

Yoko hastily shoved the salt shaker sodium bomb down a hole in the belfry floor and, given that the reaction was being magically augmented by her blood, waited for the gargantuan blast that would result.

–

J pulled the Vampire Killer out of Solomon’s hand as the corpse lay still on the floor, and held it in his own hands. He stood there silently for a moment, lost in thought.

 _Were my suspicions correct?_ Alucard thought. _Does he recognize the Vampire Killer as his own? If anything could return to Julius Belmont his memory…_

“So, who was Julius?” J asked as he helped Alucard to his feet.

Alucard was bleeding quite a bit from the wound to his stomach, but it seemed his insides hadn’t become his outsides yet, and once J had helped him up, he found could stand unaided. “An old… friend. But he was only a boy, really, when he… died. Nineteen, but something of a late bloomer.”

“So you guys had, like, a Batman and Robin thing going on? Must’ve been your Jason Todd or something.”

“I know not who those people are.”

J chuckled and fiddled with the whip some more, appraising it rather like a jeweler would a diamond of dubious origin. He squinted at it, running it against his bloody fingers, as if he’d seen it once before, or at least he thought he’d seen it.

Finally, he turned to Alucard. “You okay, Al?”

Alucard pulled his reddened hand away from the wound in his gut left by the whip. The bleeding seemed to have stopped, and the wound would soon close itself—although the scar would linger for at least an hour. “Yes,” he said. “I believe so.”

J hung the Vampire Killer from his belt. “Good,” he said.

And then he decked Alucard in the face.

“ _Thirty-five goddamn years!”_ he shouted as Alucard hit the ground once again.

The punch hurt more than anything Sol had done to Alucard. As his cheek throbbed, he used his tongue to poke around his mouth and make sure no teeth had been loosened from his jaw. _“Julius…?”_

Julius threw up his arms. “You son of a bitch! Did you even _try_ to look for me?”

Alucard’s joy at seeing his old friend was quickly undercut by a need to sooth Julius’ anger, however well-placed it was. Nineteen years of missing memories, entire friends and families erased from his life, did not return easily or comfortably. “Julius, my friend, we all thought—”

“You.” Julius pointed his finger at Alucard. “It didn’t have to take _this_ long for you to find me. Thirty-five— _thirty-six_ years! Jesus! I didn’t even know who I _was!”_

“If I had known you’d made it out of the castle,” Alucard insisted, “I’d have found you. I’d have made sure of it.” He wiped blood from his nose. “Believe me.”

“My life’s practically over. And I barely even lived it!”

“You have plenty more decades ahead—”

Julius cut him off. “What, do you really think I’m gonna live to be _ninety?_ Me?” He pointed to himself. “ I’m lucky if I live to be _sixty! Look_ at me, Alucard! _”_

This wasn’t at all how Alucard had imagined meeting Julius. He’d pictured himself encountering the kid as if he’d never left. He’d imagined himself seeing Julius, seeing his don’t-tell-me-it’s-awful attempt at a mustache and his patchy red not-anywhere-close-to-a-beard, not… this decrepit, broken man with rusty hair and skin like leather. He’d been expecting to rescue a puppy, not a worn-down old dog.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

Julius kicked at a rock and stubbed his toe. “I was all set to live the best years of my life and I spent them stowing away on—” He cut himself short. “What did you say?”

Alucard repeated himself. “I’m sorry.”

Julius’ shoulders slumped, and he let out a great sigh as rainwater ran down his rusty hair. He sat down next to Alucard. “Guess I got the beard and mustache I always wanted.” He chuckled bitterly. He glanced at Alucard, then looked down at his hands. Blood traced the cracks and callouses in his old skin.

Alucard felt more pity for Julius than he could possibly feel for himself. “I’m—”

“Yes, yes, I get it, you’re sorry.” Julius rolled his eyes.

“We were all devastated,” Alucard told him. “Your parents were inconsolable.”

“Must be dead by now.”

Alucard nodded. “They passed away only a few years after the war.”

“And I bet you just dragged yourself into your coffin and took another nap.”

The words stung. “…Yes,” Alucard admitted. “I did. But—”

Julius stood up. “What the hell kind of friend _are_ you?” he snapped.

“I didn’t think there was anything I could do,” Alucard protested, “until the castle came around again—”

“Yeah. Sure. Whatever.” Julius stormed off.

Alucard pulled himself to his feet. “Julius, where are you going?” he called out.

“Wherever you’re not, asshole!” his estranged friend shot back.

“Jul—”

Julius waved him off. “Go be emotionally distant over there or something. It’s all you’re good for.”

“I truly wish I had tried harder,” Alucard called out.

“Yeah, I _bet_ you do, Alucard.”

Alucard knew better than to pursue Julius any farther, although watching him vanish into the depths of the castle gave him a pain in his heart altogether distinct from the pain of his wounds. What he’d feared most of all had been finding Julius dead, but meeting him and hearing him curse his name hurt more than anything.

As the misting rain subsided and Alucard’s battered body repaired itself, he resolved to ensure the same fate would not befall Yoko, Mina, or Soma.

_Soma._

He still had one more mission to complete.

–

“ _Up here, Soma!”_ Mina called out.

Soma raised his arm, shot a line of spider silk straight through a hole in the ceiling, and pulled himself up to the rafters Spider-Man style, the wind rushing past him as he flew through the air. Something fell down as he fell up. A… _salt shaker?_

King Crimson scrabbled to his feet, pulled a handful of blood vials out of his bandolier, drew his hand back—

And with an ear-splitting pop and an all-obscuring cloud of smoke and billowing boiling-hot steam, the ruined baptismal font beneath Soma vanished, dust and pulverized stone and marble flying into the air.

Soma swung all the way up to the ceiling and then dropped down, onto the warped and splintered floorboards of the belfry, landing on his feet. Boiling white steam poured from the gaps in the floorboards behind him as he propped himself up against one of the chapel’s old bells.

“Ladies,” he said with a faint smile as he slumped to the floor, “we’ve gotta stop meeting like this.”

Yoko rushed to his attention. “Let me take a look at your eye, Soma.” Yoko brushed the hair out of his eyes, running her hand along the burned right side of his face. His face still burned, but her hands were cool to the touch.

“Didn’t know you were a doctor, Miss Belnades.”

Mina’s hand brushed against his, but there was a difference, a distance, in her touch. [Thank you so much, Soma,] she whispered, [I’m so glad you’re okay...]

“When I was a lab assistant,” Yoko said with a tinge of pride, “I had to help a lot of students with the eye wash station.” With her fingers she pried Soma’s eyelid open.

“What’s the damage?” Soma hoped he wouldn’t be blind. Although eyepatches did seem to be in style around here.

“Alkali burns cause the most harm,” Yoko explained, “due to the chemicals’ high pH and readiness to penetrate the eyes’ surface.”

 _Well, I guess I found my next Halloween costume,_ Soma thought, his spirits falling . _Two-Face. Guess kids’ll have a new reason to make fun of my looks after today._

“I don’t think that’s what we’re dealing with here,” she continued.

Soma sighed in relief.

“I’m guessing holy water probably has a neutral pH,” she continued. “Which would make this more like treating pepper spray or tear gas exposure. Of course, it’s obviously having a much more severe effect on you, but… Hold on for a sec. Can I have your coat?”

Soma shrugged it off and handed it to her, and Yoko drew another magic circle around it. The bloodstains covering the coat shimmered and faded away. “Hey, thanks.” He didn’t see how it helped his eye, but a stain-free jacket was always a good thing to have on hand.

Then Yoko grabbed the coat and pressed its hem against the burns on Soma’s face. There was a mild sting, but the pain surrounding his eye soon stopped throbbing and faded away. “What the—”

“I transmuted the bloodstains on your coat into milk,” said Yoko.

“ _Milk?”_ Soma repeated, incredulous.

“A home remedy for pepper spray and tear gas. I had some friends who marched in a lot of protests in college, so I had to learn these things.” Yoko helped Soma lie down on his back. “Keep that pressed to your face for as long as you need. God willing, you’ll be able to see out of that eye again in a few minutes.”

Soma laughed bitterly as Mina held the damp hem of his jacket over his face. “Hah. God willing.”

Yoko stood up. “When you start feeling better, we need to get out of here and make our way back to—”

And then a black katana streaked with blood slid across her throat. Standing behind Yoko as she stood with the blade to her neck was a mad man, fury burning in his bloodshot green eyes, his face all red with blood and burns, the lenses of his glasses shattered, his red cloak tattered and torn.

“ _Soma Cruz,”_ King Crimson snarled, blood and spit dripping from a mouth full of shattered teeth. _“I’m not done with you!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STAND MASTER: KING CRIMSON  
> STAND NAME: [WAITING FOR THE WORMS]
> 
> You'd think he's mad at Soma for boiling him alive here, but actually, he's just salty in general because he just found out his Twitter profile was unverified.


	26. In the Court of the Crimson King, Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, King Crimson keeps going, a new friend shows up again, and Soma takes a bath.

Yoko stood in front of Soma, King Crimson—or what was left of him—holding her from behind. In one hand, he held the infinitely-sharp black katana to her throat. His other hand was wrapped around hers, and as he raised her hand up, the concentric rings of magical circles tattooed onto her palm pointed directly at Soma.

“Yoko,” King Crimson hissed into her ear, “use that beautiful head of yours. All your life you’ve know that your family has played integral roles in the fight against Dracula. You can still fulfill that role.”

Yoko’s eyes darted from the blade at her throat to Soma and back again. It was true that her family had worked alongside the Belmont clan and other vampire hunters for centuries, and it was true that she’d always treated her family legacy as a secret source of pride. But if fulfilling that legacy meant _this_ …

“Just point your hand… like so… and kill Soma Cruz.” King Crimson’s finger pressed down on Yoko’s middle finger, bringing the icy elemental seal emblazoned on her fingernail within striking distance of completing one of the magic circles on her hand. “And this… little… piggy… went…”

Soma stood up. “Okay. Fine. You want me to die?” He pulled his coat away from his eye and let it hang from his shoulder. His right eye was still red and his eyelid nearly swollen shut from the holy water King Crimson had thrown into it. “I’ll do it myself.”

King Crimson cocked his head. “Oh, will you?”

Soma nodded. “I’ll throw myself right out the window. I’ll even let you watch me splatter against the rocks. Just let Miss Belnades go.”

Yoko would have smiled in appreciation of Soma’s gesture if the situation weren’t so dire. And King Crimson thought this boy was Dracula!

“Well? Go ahead. Do it.” King Crimson gestured with Yoko’s hand toward the window on the far side of the big brass bell.

“Let her go first.”

King Crimson raised a blackened, shriveled eyebrow. “How do I know you’ll keep your word?”

“How do I know you’ll keep _yours?”_ Soma countered.

“Fair enough.” King Crimson guided Yoko to take a few steps toward Soma, leading like a demented ballroom dancer. “I’ll let her go as soon as your feet leave the windowsill. You can even leap off from behind like a diver—so you can seem me do it. How’s that sound?”

Soma walked to the crumbling stone windowsill, braced himself against the windowframe on both sides, and turned around. “Okay. You win.”

“Feet off the ground, Soma.” King Crimson squeezed Yoko’s hand in a way that was, quite frankly, inappropriate.

Soma took a deep breath, closing his eyes.

“ _No!”_ Mina stepped in between Soma and King Crimson, falling to her knees. “Please, don’t make Soma do this. It doesn’t matter what you think of him. He doesn’t have an evil bone in his body. Even if he _is_ Dracula…”

“Mina, it’s okay.” Soma smiled. “No one’s in any danger. King Crimson’s sword is out of batteries.”

“What?” King Crimson lifted the blade from Yoko’s neck to inspect it. So Yoko elbowed him in the gut, rammed her heel onto his toes, and kneed him in the groin. He smacked against the floorboards as the sword rolled out of his open hand.

Soma vaulted out of the window and rolled across the floor, sweeping up the black katana and giving it a few swings himself. The blade’s edges lit up blue and crackled with electricity as it traced luminescent, thrumming arcs through the air.

“Would you look at that.” He whistled in amazement. “Guess I was wrong.”

King Crimson moaned and staggered to his feet, his will to fight no less dulled by his humiliation (but significantly dulled by the kneecap that had crushed his unmentionables). Pulling a fistful of vials from his bandoliers, he threw them to the floor and created seven scarlet-uniformed Blutritters.

“Take Mina downstairs,” Soma told Yoko. He brought the blade between the two women and the bloodied men. “I’ll finish King Crimson off.” Soma growled King Crimson’s name like a curse as he stared down his enemy and the attachment of Blutritters circling him. With one strike, he cut two of them down and forced King Crimson back.

The others charged Soma, and with slash after slash, he reduced them to puddles one by one. As it sank to the floor, one Blutritter hit him in the wrist with an iron-hard cudgel, knocking the sword from Soma’s hand. It fell down a hole in the splintered and worn wooden floor and tumbled down to the bottom of the chapel.

Blood dripped down King Crimson’s face as he drew another handful of vials from his crossed bandoliers. Despite all the pain and humiliation, he smiled, revealing teeth stained red. _“Soma Cruz.”_

“ _King Crimson…”_ Soma circled him the way a buzzard circles a dying animal. The fire inside him was burning through all of his body, filling him with a heady, intoxicating bloodlust. His tongue darted out of his grinning mouth, licking his lips, as he fantasized about tearing King Crimson’s throat open and feasting on his arteries, letting blood pour into his mouth… about how good the warmth would feel in his throat, how the heady coppery smell would fill his nostrils…

The way Mina’s hand had brushed against him floated to the top of his memories. It was as if—she were _afraid_ of him. As if she’d seen something inside him that he couldn’t see. Maybe Chara had been right. Maybe King Crimson had been right.

 _Maybe I_ am _Dracula._

Another trio of Blutritters came for him, and Soma conjured a javelin, knocking them into the same pit the sword had fallen into as he lunged at King Crimson. He caught Soma’s javelin and pushed forward, and Soma kept driving and pinned King Crimson to the wall, both their arms and elbows locked as they struggled against each other.

“Before you die… mind telling me why a Hitler-worshiping asshat like you wants to rid the world of Dracula? Thought you’d be all over that brand of evil.”

“So you believe it, then?”

“Speaking hypothetically,” Soma snapped.

“It’s because a monster is a monster! Whether it’s a bloodthirsty vampire or a kingdom of sunshine and rainbows and happiness!” King Crimson ducked, pulling his hands off the javelin’s shaft and letting Soma stumble forward. He scuttled up to the rafters. “You’re not _people._ You don’t belong in this world! When King Solomon takes control of Neo-Ecclesia, we’ll purge the world of monsters! We’ll purge the world of the unholy and unclean! _Deus_ fucking _vult!”_

Soma followed King Crimson up to the rafters, balancing on the sturdy wooden beams. He pursued King Crimson, but the blood-covered, battered man picked up an ancient falchion that had been lying on the central beam and cut into Soma’s javelin, splintering the handle.

“When the degenerate rise to the top, they bring the weak with them, and the strong live in ignominy!” King Crimson split the javelin with another strike and drove Soma back. Soma struggled to maintain his balance and avoid falling off the beam, which was only just wide enough for him to fit both his feet on. _“It’s a perversion of nature!”_

 _Shit! This guy’s gone full Nazi!_ Soma switched to the blood sword, amazed at how naturally his power to dominate the souls of others was coming to him. Time was slowing down within his mental locus—picking a soul was almost like pressing pause in a video game.

But time did still pass on the outside, and by the time Soma had let the spiny resin-like quills of blood engulf his right hand, King Crimson’s blade had swung past him, thankfully sliding off the armored vest under his shirt. _“Earth belongs to humans!”_ King Crimson bellowed. “Civilization _belongs to humans!_ Freaks like you and your friends have no place in it! _”_

Soma parried each strike as King Crimson continued his rant, vibrations from each strike numbing his arm. “I’m not keen on living in a world with people like you either!”

“Then don’t live in it!” King Crimson pulled another handful of vials from his bandoliers and threw them in Soma’s face. _More holy water this time?_ He threw his arm up over his face, but what shattered against his upraised arm was blood.

And then Soma had two creepy Nazi blood-men on top of him, pinning him down. His limbs dangled from the edges of the wooden beams as the Blutritters dug their knees, and the combined weight of their bodies, into his abdomen.

Soma could barely breathe. _“You… you’re a disgrace,”_ he squeaked.

“A disgrace?” King Crimson scoffed. “To what? Humanity? Human dignity? I _am_ humanity.” He called the Blutritters off Soma and they slunk across the rafters, their eyes glowing like hot coals in the dim and gloomy lighting.

The rafters began to moan and creak ominously as Soma struggled to fill his aching lungs and pulled himself up. Something was… filling him up. A well of energy inside him he’d never tapped before. He felt strong, felt… _hungry._ No, not quite hungry, and not quite thirsty either. It was the same feeling of unfulfillment he’d gotten when he’d seen Dracula’s castle for the first time. Like a hole in his heart. Like what he had seen in the mirror within his mental locus.

He looked King Crimson in the eyes and the hunger grew stronger. He could think of nothing but quenching that horrible desire.

King Crimson ran for it. Soma pursued him from one rafter to another, leaping over the empty space.

“This isn’t about humanity. It’s not even about what you’ve done to me or my friends.” With a single strike, he cut down the two remaining Blutritters, and his sword met King Crimson’s in a shower of sparks. _“You’re a disgrace to King Crimson!”_

“ _What?”_

King Crimson stumbled backward under an onslaught of frenzied slashes.

“ _King Crimson was the world’s first prog rock band! They were_ revolutionary!” Soma shouted. _“The world of music owes them a debt that can_ never _be repaid! How_ dare _you sully that name with your Nazi bullshit!”_

An errant swing struck King Crimson across the cheek and the bridge of his nose, tearing his skin and mangling what was left of his glasses.

“And yeah, trying to ruin my life pissed me off! Trying to kill me pissed me off! Kidnapping Mina and trying to make Yoko kill me _definitely_ pissed me off! But this—!” Soma tore the sword from King Crimson’s hands. “This is a bridge too far!”

King Crimson threw the last of his vials at Soma. This one shattered against his chest, and another scarlet Nazi slammed into him like a linebacker. Soma was thrown from the rafters, smacking against one of the belfry’s old and weathered bells. He slid off the pitted and rusty surface and hit the floor in a crumpled heap, the pain a knife shoved into his spine.

“You poor boy!” King Crimson called out as his Blutritter helped him climb back down the rafters. He stood in front of the gloomy window, framed by the dull twilight glow from outside. He smiled that shit-eating grin of his, and Soma swore it would be his last. “Did I ruin your favorite band for you? Are you going to be triggered every time you listen to them now?”

Soma forced himself to his feet. “No,” he spat, putting up his fists. The blood-blade slid over his right hand as blood tricked down his chin. “The next time I listen to them, I’ll just remember how good it felt to finally wring your scrawny little neck.”

The Blutritter’s blade slid out of its sleeve. King Crimson snapped his fingers. “Sic ‘em, boy.”

Soma’s blade slid past its blade—a perfectly-executed riposte—and gored out the Blutritter’s heart (if it even had one). He struck again and again, perforating the homunculus like a pincushion before its body could melt away.

“I’m not losing to some effeminate pretty-boy freak!” King Crimson bellowed.

And Soma struck King Crimson—just a glancing blow, but enough to push him out the window. King Crimson feel backward, windmilling his arms as terror grotesquely contorted his face, and as he fell he scrabbled at the windowsill and held on for dear life.

Soma stepped onto the sill and peered down. The castle continued downward for at least a dozen stories, knobbly and misshapen near the bottom like a half-carved sculpture. Below that, black clouds swirled and lightning arced from within their depths. It was a long way to fall. Maybe King Crimson would never hit the castle’s foundation, and simply tumble for all eternity through the abyss.

“I don’t wanna die, I’m so sorry, please, please forgive me,” King Crimson gasped. He knew full well that now, finally, he was completely at Soma’s mercy, and Soma relished that fact.

“‘Effeminate pretty-boy freak,’ huh?”

“I-I didn’t mean it, sir, you’re the manliest dude I’ve ever—”

Soma stood over the bloodstained, desperate man. “Where’s that human _pride_ of yours, Gavin?”

“You obviously take great pride in your appearance,” King Crimson groveled, more a peasant now than a king. “D-do you use a special kind of conditioner for your hair?”

Soma ignored his pleas. “You know,” he said slowly, drawing on his recent personal experience, “when you’re falling to your death, every second feels like _years.”_

“P-please,” King Crimson blubbered as he struggled to hold on. One hand, slick with blood, slipped from the sill and dangled at his side, and his other hand was soon to join it. “I—I’ll do anything you ask. I’ll be your chauffeur. I’ll be your footstool. For god’s sake,” he begged as the windowsill started to crumble beneath his bloody fingers, “I’ll wipe your ass for you!”

Soma thought about his first meeting with King Crimson, or Gavin Fripp, as he’d called himself. He remembered how small he’d felt, how weak and powerless he’d felt, how horrible it had been to feel his entire world falling apart. He thought about how King Crimson had hurt his friend, his best friend, his _only_ friend, and taunted him about it from the other side of the world.

And so he ground his heel on King Crimson’s fingers, and his final words echoed in King Crimson’s ears all the way down to the rocky foundations of the castle.

“ _Enjoy your thousand-year Reich, dipshit.”_

It took a long time for him to fall. And King Crimson screamed all the way down. As long as Soma could still hear it, it was like music to his ears.

Soma walked down the stone staircase, tired and sweating and stained head to toe with blood. Yoko and Mina both noticed the hard light in his eyes and the feral rictus twisting his blood-spattered face.

“Are you okay, Soma?” Mina asked, but the voice caught in her throat. She took a stumbling step backward, horrified at the sight of so much blood.

“I’m fine,” Soma said, wiping blood from his cheek on his sleeve and managing only to smear more blood around his face. “Most of it’s not mine,” he reassured her. It didn’t work. “Okay, first things first, let’s… find a place where I can wash up.”

Soma strode across the chapel, Mina trailing behind him. Yoko stopped to pick up Alucard’s Stardust Omen, which King Crimson had mercifully not taken with him on his long trip down to oblivion. Soma opened the door into the castle corridors, saw at least five Blutritters who’d somehow persisted despite King Crimson’s death, and quickly shut the door. “Let’s try a different way out,” he said.

A few shots rang out, muffled behind the door, and then it swung open of its own accord. Soma readied his blade.

A tall, stocky man in a casually-undone military jacket tiptoed around a gaggle of melting Nazis and offered Soma his hand. It was none other than Castlevania’s own self-described Switzerland—Hammer. “Hey there, Soma! If it isn’t my best customer!”

Soma shook it. “Hey, Hammer! What are you doing here?”

Hammer shrugged and gestured to his… entourage. There was a troupe of monsters behind him, all clad in patchwork body armor, and several bearing distinctly modern firearms.

Soma drew his sword, ready despite the beating he’d already endured to slice and dice. “Watch out—”

Within seconds he was upon the demons, the congealed-blood blade sprouting from his forearm. A strong pair of arms latched onto him from behind, curling under his armpits and lifting up his feet as an equally-strong knee jabbed into his back.

“Soma! Holy shit, get a hold of yourself!” Hammer shouted as he forced Soma into submission, pinning him down to the floor. “Do we need to put you in a Hannibal Lector mask or something?”

Soma struggled at first, but as the red haze began to clear from his vision, his wits began to return to him. The monsters that had formed Hammer’s entourage—and a few human soldiers as well who must have deserted like Hammer had—kept their distance.

“ _Soma, what are you doing?”_ Mina shouted out, her hand brushing against Soma’s shoulder.

“These guys are my new clients,” Hammer explained as he kept Soma pinned to the floor. “They’re good people—er, monsters. Monster people. You ready to behave yourself, kid?”

“What’s the matter with him?” Mina asked Hammer.

“It’s all right,” Hammer reassured her, and the rest of his entourage. “Heat of the moment. Inevitable for someone as green as him—no discipline.”

Soma nodded and let the blood-blade still jutting from his wrist liquefy. The last thing he needed was another lecture. “Sorry.”

With that, Hammer unpinned Soma and helped him up. “Sorry’s right. This isn’t a video game, kid,” he lectured. “You don’t get XP for killing people. Got it?”

Soma wrung his hands. Fighting those creatures had seemed like a perfectly natural thing to do at the time, but now that he was past that moment of bloodlust, he felt disgusted by his own sickening impulses. “Got it.”

“Now,” Hammer said, “aren’t you gonna introduce your lady friends?”

“Right. These are Yoko Belnades and Mina Hakuba. Yoko, Mina, this is my friend…”

“Armond Hansel Danasty.” Hammer planted a courteous kiss on both Yoko’s and Mina’s hands. “But my pals call me Hammer.”

An eight-foot demon, its horns curling like a ram’s at the sides of its reptilian head, pushed its way past Hammer and stared down Yoko, baring greenish-yellow fangs desperately in need of a good floss. Soma grimaced as the demon passed by him—not from the stench, or the frightful appearance, but because Soma still really, _really_ wanted to rip out its soul. He could feel his fingers curl into his palms, and bit his own tongue to quell the urges.

“You are a friend of Chara’s, are you not?” the demon asked.

“No—” Soma started.

“Yes we are,” Yoko told them. “Best friends. You can just ask them yourself if you’d like.”

“A friend of Chara’s is a friend of ours.” The demon bowed. “Welcome to the Monster’s Revolutionary Vanguard for the Free Monster’s Republic of Castlevania.”

“The what for the _what?”_ Yoko asked.

Hammer knelt down and took a look at Yoko’s wrist, but he couldn’t help but steal a glance at her bemused face, and he spent about as much time hitting on her as he did tending to her injury. “Now what’s a pretty thing like you doing running around in a castle like this?”

“My job, mostly,” she replied, wincing as Hammer—an experienced combat medic by his admission—felt the cracked bones in her wrist.

“Does it hurt when I do this?”

Yoko gritted her teeth. “Not much, really,” she said, clearly lying.

“Not gonna lie to you,” he said, sucking air through his teeth, “your wrist is looking pretty bad. Might be a torn ligament here. And you certainly haven’t been treating it with the TLC it deserves. You’ll probably need a doctor to set it when you get out of here. How’d you break it?”

“I—I fell down.”

“…From heaven?” Hammer inquired with a roguish smile.

An impish gremlin crept up to Hammer, and Soma nearly killed it on the spot when he noticed the shiny blade it was carrying. “How much for this knife, sir?” it asked.

“Ninety-nine ninety-nine,” Hammer said without missing a beat as he fixed Yoko’s wrist. “But ‘cuz I like you, I’ll give it to you for sixty-five.”

“Thank you, sir!” The gremlin dropped a sack of jangling coins at Hammer’s side.

“Business is booming, huh? How’d you get mixed up with all this?” Soma asked him, gesturing at the gaggle of monsters clad in hastily-applied patchwork military-grade body armor and holding dubiously-acquired weapons. “Thought you said were Switzerland.”

“I was just fooling myself, really.” Hammer pulled a splint from his pack of medical supplies. “I’m America, through and through. Y’know. Looking out for the underdog. And,” he added, “I _hate_ Nazis. You can imagine I was pissed to find out the, uh, _class_ of ‘human beings’ who hired us.” The other humans mingling with the monsters nodded in agreement.

“But aren’t you just selling their own weapons back to them?” Mina asked.

“At a price, of course,” Hammer added. “Between Soma and these _freedom fighters_ here I can almost afford a down payment on a nice house in the Bay Area. How’s the wrist, Madame Belnades?”

“Better,” she told him.

Hammer handed her a bottle of pills. “Take some ibuprofen if it starts to hurt again.”

“M-Mr. Hammer, sir,” Mina asked, “can you bring us to the front gate?”

Hammer gestured out the door. “Right this way, ladies and gentleman, and watch your step. I’ll have you guys out of here in no time flat.”

–

“Are you sure this is a shortcut, Hammer?” Soma asked as the soldier-turned-merchant led him along with Mina and Yoko into the reservoirs beneath the castle. They walked on the side of the castle’s canals, the frothy white water rushing past them. Soma held Mina to his side, shielding her with his coat from the constant spray.

“Well, it’s not exactly shorter,” Hammer called out over the din, “but it’s miserable! No soldiers or monsters come this way!”

 _Not exactly shorter._ Soma could tell Yoko couldn’t have been pleased to hear _that._ She was hell bent on jumping right back into the castle to look for Alucard after they dropped off Mina, and Soma couldn’t blame her. Half of him wanted to push deeper into the castle as well. The more monsters he killed, the more souls he took, the stronger he’d get, and the better he’d be able to defend Mina.

“Yeah, I can see why!” Soma called back. “Or at least _smell_ why!” He held Mina closer. “Holding up, Mina?”

“Honestly, Soma,” Mina replied, looking quite exhausted, “I’ve had better days.”

Mina’s eyes were bloodshot, her eyelids heavy and drooping. Due to the way time flowed in this castle, she must have been stuck here for… the better part of a full day, at least. And how little of that time had she spent sleeping? “My arm still hurts,” she said. “Just a little.”

“Don’t you worry, Mina. Like I said, lycanthropy is mostly hereditary,” Yoko reminded her. “It’s not like you’re going to turn into a wolf during the next full moon.”

“ _Lycanthropy?”_ Soma eyed Mina’s wound. He should have known better than to trust Chara’s hand-picked ‘entourage…’

Mina furrowed her brow. “N-no, Miss Belnades, _that’s_ not what I’m worried about. But thank you, anyway.”

“You think werewolves are cute, don’t you, Mina?” Soma asked, starting to think perhaps that Mina had a bit of an interest in certain supernatural creatures that went just a little beyond _cute._

“Not—As if I would after _this!”_ Mina protested. “I—I do not like your tone, Soma!”

“S-Sorry.” Soma sighed. _God, I’m really fucked up, aren’t I?_ he thought.

“You know, werewolves do really well in school,” Hammer said.

“Do they now?” Soma asked.

“Yeah! They always give snappy answers. You’ll be fine, Mina.”

Mina laughed at his joke in spite of herself. “You’re quite funny, Mr. Hammer. Thank you.”

“You flatter me. It’s just another tool in my first-aid kit. Joking’s almost as good as morphine when you’re shoving someone’s guts back into their belly.”

“Really?”

Hammer shrugged. “Well, maybe I’m exaggerating a bit.”

Mina stumbled on an especially slick patch of the floor and tripped, shrieking as her legs gave way. Soma caught her. “It’s all right,” he said. “I’ve got you.” He walked slowly and deliberately, as if sheer force of will could give his boots more traction against the smooth, wet stone. He wished he had a soul in his collection that could handle that.

If Mina _were_ infected from the bite on her arm, would that mean she wasn’t human anymore?

Would Soma be able to take _her_ soul?

Mina must have sensed something was wrong—her hand slipped away from his. [Soma, are you all right?]

[I-I’m fine,] Soma stammered, clearing his head. Where had _that_ thought come from? As if he’d ever do anything to hurt Mina—no matter what happened!

Come to think of it, he’d had a _lot_ of intrusive thoughts like that since he’d come to this castle. Maybe it was for the best if he stayed with Mina at the castle’s front gate and waited for everybody else. After all, Soma had what he came for, and that was enough, wasn’t it? Did he _need_ any more souls for his collection?

Something tugged on his ankle—something cold and slimy, and as it yanked his foot across the slick and mossy stone, Soma drew his sword and whirled around, spying a writhing mass of mauve tentacles sprouting from an ivory-colored human skull climbing out of the rushing water. One tentacle wrapped around his ankle; the others sank into the water, anchoring the creature against the current as it heaved him toward the canal.

Soma’s sword, a rusty relic of the castle, bounced harmlessly against the slick tentacle, and he flailed out, his fingers brushing Mina’s robes. As he reached out to her his feet slid into the churning maelstrom and the water yanked him down as if it were a ravenous beast—it felt as though his coat had gotten caught under a road roller’s wheel, such was the water’s strength. He couldn’t pull away if he tried.

“Soma!” Mina grabbed him by the wrist. “Miss Yoko! Mister Hammer!” she shouted out as she struggled against the forces pulling Soma back.

“ _Let go!”_ Soma shouted, worried the current would pull Mina in with him. Yoko grabbed her, and Hammer grabbed onto Yoko, but every link in the human chain found little purchase on the slippery stone walkway, and Mina fell into the canal alongside Soma.

“ _No!”_ he gurgled, water pouring into his throat. He reached out as the current dragged his head under the water. He thrust his head above the surface, choking and spluttering and drawing as much breath as he could as he tried furiously to both tread water and keep a firm grip on Mina’s arm. Yoko and Hammer rushed to his and Mina’s aid, and Soma felt Yoko’s hand brush against his before the current swept him. Before the water buried Soma, he could see Yoko and Hammer running after him.

–

Deep in the bowels of Castlevania, Asriel woke up on top of a cot in what could best be described as a hovel, a rough and threadbare blanket draped over his body. He rubbed his bleary eye. Using _a_ _ura regia_ had been a mistake. He’d forgotten how much that technique wore him out.

“Only the finest accommodations for King Asriel, Hero of the Working Monster,” Undyne snickered from a creaking wooden chair at the far end of the room. Between them was naught but a worn, stained table and a dirty firepit. A sharp contrast from the opulence of the castle above. “No, seriously,” she added. “This is the best they’ve got.” She threw out her arms.

“I can’t believe Dracula’s castle has _slums.”_ Actually, now that Asriel said it, he _could_ believe it. It was the way things used to be. Servants in the back… or rather, the basement.

“No wonder they wanted to strike, huh?”

Asriel climbed out of the stiff cot, stretched, and cracked his back, letting the weariness drain from his body. “Any luck getting in touch with the others?”

Undyne shook her head. “Alphys can’t reach anyone else. _I_ might be the only one who still has both halves of a working comm.”

“Not even Chara?”

“If they are, they aren’t picking up,” Undyne answered. “Asriel, I’ve been thinking. Look, sure, all these monsters are really gung-ho about Chara, but there’s something that still doesn’t feel—”

 _They could be in danger,_ Asriel thought. “We have to find them.”

“And where are we gonna start looking? The castle’s huge.”

Asriel had to admit, the task _was_ daunting. And they probably only had two hours or less left in the castle before the solar eclipse outside ended. As Yoko had said, if they didn’t all make it back to the front gate by then, they’d be trapped here… until the next time a solar eclipse passed through one of only a few particular ley points. That could be decades—or even centuries from now.

“Well, we’re near the bottom, so I guess we’ll start here and work our way up,” he said as Undyne led him out of the hut where a crowd of monsters had gathered with weapons.

Willowrot was, of course, waiting for him, and pounced on Asriel as soon as he’d stepped outside. “Asriel! You’ve awoken!” She clung to him. “Sorry I didn’t wake you, but we’ve received new orders from Sovereign Chara—”

“They were _here?”_

“Uh—no, unfortunately, they contacted us by mirror—but it’s wonderful, Asriel, darling! Of course, I always knew this day would come, after all, it’s—” Her violet eyes sparkled. “Well, anyway, we’re not just a _union_ now, we’re a _vanguard—_ There’s going to be a _revolution!”_ she squealed.

“If you’re going to be fighting a revolution,” Undyne said, eyeing the dryad’s voluptuous figure up and down with skepticism, “then you should at least put on a shirt.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gee, Soma, if only you had A SOUL THAT LET YOU WALK ON WATER, but no, you had to sequence break...


	27. Proof of Blood

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Alucard gets a break.

Yoko and Hammer scurried through the canals, Hammer consulting his copy of the castle map under a flashlight every few minutes. These tunnels wound their way across the entire bottom half of the castle, and Yoko worried that Soma and Mina could have been swept away to anywhere.

Hammer worried, too, and it was a small consolation to Yoko that he’d stopped with the cheesy pick-up lines. As he ran, the sweeping beam from his flashlight swept across the frothy waters and the carved, water-slicked walls, the patterns of the waves and rippling water cast in light on the ceiling.

A pale, scaly creature, a semi-humanoid salamander-like creature devoid of pigment, climbed across the ceiling with sticky feet. It craned its neck to look at the interlopers, twisting its head 180 degrees and blinking with huge black eyes.

Yoko trained her hand on it, though she was loath to use the lightning sigil if needed: there was no telling how the slick, damp stone would conduct the electricity. Captain Undyne, the fish woman with lightning powers, probably would have known well enough. If they’d all stuck together, she could’ve told Yoko.

The salamander looked at Yoko. Its pink tongue slid out of its mouth and brushed against its eyes, first one, then the other, before it hurried on its way, scuttling across the ceiling.

She and Hammer reached a junction in the canals. Ahead of them, a perpendicular tunnel intersected with theirs, and an ornamented cement partition blocked off the perpendicular canal from the canal whose path Yoko and Hammer had followed. The water they’d been following crashed against the partition and poured down it, churning, bubbling, and roaring.

Hammer consulted the map again. “This waterway goes straight down,” he explained, shouting to be heard over the din of the waterfall.

Yoko looked down into the maelstrom with trepidation. How could anyone survive getting swept into that, let alone someone who’d gone through even half as much as Soma and Mina had?

She tried to reassure herself. If Soma could live through a plane crash, if Mina could live through having a demon take up residence in her mind, the two of them could live through this.

“It’ll take them right to, uh, hmm…” Hammer continued, squinting at the map, pinpointing a spot near the bottom of the castle—if those rough-hewn caverns and catacombs could even be called a part of the castle. “Oh, boy. The map labels it ‘The Forbidden Zone.’ Yikes.”

“You’re not serious!”

Hammer looked closer. “Wait, wait, no. It’s called ‘The Forbidden Area.’ That better?”

“No, not really.” Yoko groaned. “Is there a way into there other than this?” she asked, gesturing with her good hand to the churning water to her side.

“Doesn’t look like it. Guess that’s why they call it the Forbidden Area.”

“At the very least,” thought Yoko aloud as she pored over the map, “we can go into the mines and get _close_ to the Forbidden Area, then we might be able to find another way in.”

“And hey, maybe there’s a vanguard cell down there that could help.” Hammer smiled. “Siding with the little guys does have its perks.”

Hammer consulted the map again, stuffed it back into his bag, and led Yoko along. As they turned the corner, a cluster of salamanders like the creature Yoko had seen earlier caught sight of them. They stood up, clad in piecemeal armor and carrying rifles.

Hammer had drawn his service pistol, but holstered it when he got a better look. “Hey!” His smile brightened. “These guys are my customers!”

The salamanders pointed their guns at him. Hammer held up his hands. “Hey, hey! It’s me, Hammer! I’m with the Republic, too!”

He and Yoko barely made it back around the corner once the salamanders opened fire.

Hammer slipped and skidded on the floor as he fumbled with his gun, getting off a shot and blowing out the eye of an unfortunate salamander that poked its head out from around the corner of the intersecting tunnels. “Dammit! I _told_ them they needed more distinct uniforms!”

It looked like the loyalists in the castle had intercepted a few of the Monster’s Revolutionary Vanguard’s supply routes and helped themselves to some of Hammer’s merchandise. _Just our luck,_ Yoko thought as she knelt down and froze the thin coating of water on the floor with her ice sigil. The salamanders scurried in pursuit, but found that even their sticky footpads could not find traction against the ice; they slid right into the canal and were dragged into the depths.

Hammer got a few more shots off. “Son of a bitch! These guys _stole_ my merchandise!” One of the salamanders who’d taken to climbing up the wall to avoid the ice patch got hit, and its head popped like a balloon. “I’m putting all this on your tab!”

Yoko primed the lightning sigil as another cluster of salamanders climbed across the walls and ceiling. “Hammer! Do your boots have rubber soles?”

Hammer took a few more shots before his gun started to click. He rummaged in his pack for more ammo. “Y-yeah, I think so,” he mumbled, not really listening.

Yoko took a deep breath. _Hope I don’t fry the both of us._ She pressed her hand against the cool, slick stone wall, her fingers scraping against the intricate carvings.

There was a flash of light, and all of the salamanders fell from the ceiling and slid off the walls and into the river at once. Yoko could feel her hair standing up on end for a second there, and she’d definitely screamed, but that seemed to be the extent of the damages to her own person.

“Nice!” Hammer slapped a fresh clip into his pistol as another wave of hostile monsters poured down the corridor. “Did you know you light up my life?” Yoko was so tightly-wound from adrenaline that the comment barely registered.

He fired another shot, and another, and then—Clicks. Hammer whacked his gun with his palm. “Ugh, now of all times…”

A man in black barreled down the tunnel, turning on a dime at the corner and charging at the salamanders. He forced himself into their midst and, with a flurry of blades, the monsters were reduced to mere flotsam and jetsam.

Hammer cleared his gun of the jammed bullet casing, planted himself between Yoko and the man in black, and fired. The man in black cut the bullets out of the air with his sword.

Yoko peered past Hammer. “Wait! Hold your fire!” She stepped around him, slipping a bit on the floor, and got a better look at the newcomer. _“Alucard?”_

He looked like he’d been through hell and back. His shirt and waistcoat hung in tatters from his shoulders (his armored vest hadn’t fared much better), baring an alabaster-pale chest with a circular sigil seared over his heart; blood speckled his face and hands; his eyes looked weary and haggard; and his hair was mussed and matted and tangled—Yoko could not recall ever seeing a single strand out of place.

For years Yoko had watched Alucard take on vampires, necromancers, cultists, and supernatural ne’er-do-wells of all shapes and sizes while hardly breaking a sweat or getting a hair out of place. Despite his incredible feats, here he seemed almost ill. Seeing him in such rough shape was like seeing a loved one in a hospital bed.

When he saw Yoko, though, in an instant the weariness vanished from his face and the sword slipped from his hand and clattered to the floor. Within seconds Alucard had wrapped his arms around her.

Yoko wasn’t sure how to react. Alucard was _hugging_ her.

Alucard was not a huggy person, in her (albeit limited) experience. He was a man who seemed to feel uncomfortable in his own skin, and it often showed in his body language. He rarely touched people unless he was politely shaking their hand, offering (at most) a comforting hand on their back, or killing them.

When she’d first met Alucard, Yoko had been terrified of him. She’d known his history with her family, and on that day when she’d first stepped into his often-unused office (it had felt like that eternal nightmare of having an exam for a class you’d never taken), he’d been everything she’d expected. Gloomy, severe, with red eyes like lasers cutting into her—but not the way other men looked at her: more like a drill instructor sizing up an underwhelming recruit. Evidently, he hadn’t thought much of a girl one year into an undergraduate chemistry degree with only the barest hint of any training in fighting supernatural forces.

And now five years later here he was, embracing Yoko like an old friend or a dear family member.

She gingerly returned the hug, and it was then that Alucard released her, letting his arms fall to his sides as if he were embarrassed by his emotional outburst. As he did so, Yoko spied a red welt circling Alucard’s throat like the burn from a noose left after a failed hanging. It was one of few injuries on his body yet to heal.

Yoko kept hugging him, relieved to see Alucard alive. “You look horrible,” she told him. She reached up to inspect the wound ringing Alucard’s neck, but he stiffened and pulled away from her touch.

“It is all cosmetic,” he assured her with a wan smile that did not quite back up his claims. _“_ _You_ look quite awful, Miss Belnades.” He patted her on the shoulder (there he was again: classic Alucard) and ran a finger across her cheek, picking up dots of blood spattered across her skin like freckles as he traced the burn mark left by King Crimson with a lukewarm finger. Alucard did not have warm blood like humans, but neither was he cold-blooded, as a pure vampire would be. His blood, his skin, was… eerily tepid.

“Most of it’s not mine,” Yoko hastily blurted out. “Alucard, I thought you were dead.”

“And I you. How grand that we were both mistaken.”

“Who’s this tall glass of…” Hammer looked Alucard up and down. “Stab wounds?”

Yoko introduced Hammer to Alucard and vise versa. “Oh, and—” She unbuckled the sword at her hip and handed it to Alucard. It was the black blade he recognized well as the Stardust Omen. “Thought you might like it back?”

Alucard took the blade. “You have my thanks.” He looked around the tunnel. It was evident from his bemused expression that there were far fewer people here than he’d expected. “Miss Hakuba…?”

Yoko glanced at the rushing water to her side.

Hammer pulled out a big, unwieldy map, plastering it to the wall and shining his flashlight over it. “We think the current’s swept them down here,” he explained.

Alucard studied the map. “I believe I remember this area.”

“It doesn’t look like there’s a way in, except for—” Hammer began.

Alucard silenced him with a wave of his hand. “The map is misleading. There are always passages it fails to mention.”

Hammer shrugged. “Well, _that’s_ not fair.”

“And you expect Dracula’s castle to be _fair,_ do you? Now, there _is_ a way into the Forbidden Area, as I recall. Two, in fact. One leads into the library.”

Yoko decided not to mention that since the library was completely burned down, _that_ passage was probably right out.

“The other,” Alucard continued, gesturing at the map, “passes over the coliseum here.”

“Great!” Hammer took the map back down, rolled it up, and shoved it back into his backpack. “Let’s get going. I’m sure there’s a vanguard cell around her we can run into.”

“A _what_ cell?” Alucard asked.

“Do you need to lie down for a bit first?” Yoko asked Alucard. He still looked deathly pale—more so than usual.

Alucard took off, leading the two of them deeper into the castle. “I appreciate your concern, but I am quite fine now.”

“Wait.” Yoko grabbed hold of his wrist. “Alucard, the seal on your chest—”

“It’s nothing.”

“Can I just look at it?” Yoko asked, not convinced.

Alucard sighed and turned to face her, pulling aside the remains of his shirt and baring his chest.

Yoko peered at the sigil-laden circle seared over his heart and was shocked to find she recognized the symbols. It looked almost like some sort of binding spell.

Yoko traced her finger around one of the twisting symbols writ around the seal. A nerd at heart, she was struck by the thought that it reminded her of the writing inscribed on the One Ring in _The Lord of the Rings._ “In the land of Mordor where the shadows lie…” she murmured.

“I beg your pardon?” Alucard asked.

“What _is_ this?”

“It is a seal,” Alucard replied, deadpan, as if he were avoiding the question.

“But what does it _do?”_

“It’s…” Alucard paused. “I am not myself with it on. Weaker. Diminished.” He looked away. “Hideous,” he mumbled, as if embarrassed to admit to his vanity.

Yoko felt Alucard already looked rather devilishly handsome, but worried that complimenting him on that might backfire. _“They_ did it to you? Why?” It almost seemed pointless to ask why Neo-Ecclesia had done something so cruel and petty now that Yoko knew their true nature.

“The last thing our ‘friends’ at the Agency want is to face me at full strength.” Alucard pulled away, tugging his clothes over the tattoo and continuing on his way. “It is also, I believe… a form of torture.”

 _Torture?_ “Let me take a closer look at it. Maybe I can find a way to fix it…”

Alucard took a deep breath, regaining his icy composure. “Worry not for now, Miss Belnades,” he reassured her. “You have worried enough about me today.”

The three of them sank deeper into the depths of Dracula’s castle, and true to Hammer’s word, managed to meet up with a cluster of the castle’s nascent “freedom fighters.” Their gloomy encampment, tucked away in one of the castle’s massive drainage pipes, boasted a hoard of weapons and armor expropriated from the castle, as well as plenty of Hammer’s “merchandise” scavenged from the mercenaries.

Alucard kept a wary eye on the denizens of the castle surrounding him, one hand perpetually resting at the hilt of his sword.

“Don’t worry,” Hammer reassured him. “They’re good people.”

“I doubt that,” Alucard muttered.

“Oh, Young Master Alucard, I’m hurt.” An old, wizened man in resplendent green and gold satin robes stumbled out from within a mound of bric-a-brac. He bowed in deference. “You _are_ Alucard, are you not?”

“‘Young Master?’” Yoko asked, giving Alucard a playful nudge. Alucard seemed more rankled by the old man’s words than Yoko’s good-natured ribbing.

“I must say, you do look quite… diminished?” the old man said.

Within seconds Alucard’s blade was at his throat. “O-oh, dear,” said the old man, his adam’s apple bobbing on his scrawny, waddled neck. His eye caught the seal on Alucard’s bare chest. He seemed to recognize it as well. “What _have_ they done to you?”

“Simmer down, Alucard,” Hammer said, laying a hand on Alucard’s shoulder. “We don’t want trouble.”

Alucard sheathed his blade, allowing the old man to fall to the floor. “My apologies.”

“You have mine as well. Quite touchy over your appearance, I see.” the old man said. “I would be too were I forced to trade those perfect silver locks of yours for… _that.”_ He rummaged in his cowl and pulled out a small glass vial stoppered with a cork, then handed it to Alucard. “Perhaps this will help.”

Alucard examined the vial, popped the cork, and sniffed it. “Blood. Whose?”

The old man shrugged.

“There’s far too little. It won’t last me a minute,” Alucard complained.

“Try it. There’s plenty more where that came from.”

Hammer suspiciously side-eyed the old man. “First hit’s always free,” he muttered to Yoko.

Yoko spoke up. “Alucard,” she said. “Are you certain about this?”

As if to answer her question Alucard raised the tiny vial and downed it like a shot of gin. And in a flash he underwent an incredible transformation.

In his place stood a _different_ Alucard. His eyes had turned a wolfish amber; his hair had become so light it was nearly silver, and had grown from shoulder-length down to the tips of his fingers, cascading down his back like a waterfall. Everything about him was sharp and alert, every feature of his face, every bit of tension in his body. His skin had a healthy glow bordering on a radiant light—Alucard, in what Yoko assumed was his true form, was hauntingly, almost angelically gorgeous.

Yoko’s heart skipped a beat. _That_ was Alucard? And he was only a _half-_ vampire? How ethereally beautiful would a full-blooded vampire be? The idea was almost terrifying to behold.

Alucard ran his fingers through a long lock of hair and did something Yoko had never seen him do. He smiled, showing teeth, and as he did so the corners of his eyes crinkled—and were Yoko’s eyes deceiving her, or did he have _natural eyeliner?_

“It _has_ been too long indeed.” Alucard sighed as if a great weight had been taken from his shoulders. “Ah, but who am I to go on so long without introducing my friend here?” He took the old man by the hand. “Thank you, kind sir. This man,” Alucard told Yoko and Hammer, “is the Master Librarian. A neutral party. Always willing to lend assistance… as long as the price is right.”

“My kind of guy,” said Hammer, shaking the Master Librarian’s bony hand. “I’m Hammer. Been selling your stuff at a markup, I presume.”

“Pleased to make your acquaintance, Sir Hammer. I do so appreciate a shrewd businessman.” The Master Librarian let out a shrill laugh. “Now, Master Alucard…” He threw out his arms, letting his long emerald-encrusted sleeves hang off his arms. “I bid thee welcome to the Monster’s Revolutionary Vanguard of the…”

–

“‘ _The Free Monster’s Republic of Castlevania?’”_ Alucard asked inquisitively, the image of his face wobbling slightly in Chara’s magic hand mirror.

Chara hadn’t even recognized him at first. Alucard’s hair had turned a shade of gold so pale it was nearly silver; his eyes were sharper and had turned from wine-red to brilliant amber-gold, like the eyes of a wolf; his lips were full and red; and even the contours of his face seemed different—nothing had changed in any specific way, at least not that Chara could tell (after all, they’d only met Alucard yesterday), but it was a more _Alucard_ face, if that made any sense at all. It was no wonder he’d looked so melancholic before—who _wouldn’t_ be, if they had to hide a face like this?

Chara fluffed up their hair a bit and smiled. It might have been a little immature of them, but they couldn’t help but get just a little flirty with such a gorgeous man on the other side of their mirror. “Well, h-hello there, Mr. Alucard. That’s quite a nice face you’ve, uh, got there.” _Come on, Chara,_ they told themselves. _You’ve never been_ this _bad at wooing people. If Frisk were here,_ they’d _know exactly what to say…_

“ _I am flattered. Now—”_

“Do you mind me asking why you don’t look that way _all_ the time?” Chara asked. “If I’ve overstepped my bounds at all, please, by all means—”

“ _Yes,”_ Alucard answered curtly. _“Yes, you have.”_

“A touchy subject, I take it.” Chara knew well enough that there were few things worse than being stuck with a body that didn’t _fit_ you. It was like having a little needle in the back of your brain that poked you all the time, and really stuck itself in and twisted whenever you looked at the mirror.  
Thankfully, thanks to their new body, Chara didn’t have that needle anymore—well, maybe they still did, but it was a _little_ one in there. “I understand completely, sir—you’re okay with ‘sir,’ right?—and if you ever would like somebody to talk to—”

“ _Dreemurr—What is this about a… revolutionary vanguard?”_

Ah, yes. _That._ “Do you like them? Before I came here these monsters hardly knew of the concept of organized labor. I’ve got them up to speed on two centuries of praxis in under two hours!”

Alucard raised an eyebrow.

“This place, Alucard, was a powderkeg.” Chara could feel themselves getting excited. “The monsters here were yearning to free themselves from the phantom yoke of their late master’s tyranny. All they needed with a push. And after all, if one can even teach Marx to malnourished farmers in Malaysia, than Castle Dracula would of course be a cakewalk.”

Still skeptical, Alucard pressed on. “Why _are they revolting? What have they to rebel against?”_

“Oh, they’ve got plenty. An imperialist invasion force, entrenched bourgeois tyrants, the like. I needed only to educate the proletariat, to blow on the fuse, to turn a spark into a flame of freedom and ignite—”

“ _They are calling themselves a republic. But you were a_ king, _were you not? Isn’t it odd that_ you _should lead this uprising? How can you believe both in freedom for these monsters_ and _be a monarchist?”_ Alucard interrupted, pressing ahead with his skeptical questioning. _“From my studies—and do forgive me if there is a gap in my knowledge—I was under the impression that the self-determination of the working class and the divine right of kings were quite incompatible.”_

Ah. So Alucard was as intelligent as he was handsome. Chara needed an answer that would impress on Alucard their own shrewd intelligence. “Um…” Oh, no. They were blanking. _Think of something, Chara. Something brainy._ “Do I contradict myself? Very well, then I contradict myself. I am large, I contain multitudes.”

Alucard’s eyes lit up. _“Ah, poetry. Walt Whitman, yes?”_ But his expression quickly soured. _“But that still leaves my question for you unanswered, Dreemurr. Is this really_ about _freedom… or are you planning to take power for yourself?”_

“Oh, Alucard. All I want is for monsters to be happy and free…”

“ _And frolic through the daisies?”_ Alucard looked at Chara as if he were concerned for their mental health. _“_ _These are hostile, vicious creatures._ _Either you are lying through your teeth and seek to dominate the_ _m_ _as Dracula would_ _… or you are mad,_ _and they will tear you to shreds_ _the instant you let your guard down_ _.”_

“Oh, Alucard. _Do_ try to be a bit more modern. Why _fight_ monsters when you can _befriend_ them instead? It’s a very important lesson I learned a long, long time ago, from an old… old friend.”

 _An old, old friend,_ they thought, running the words through their mind one more time. _God, do I miss you, Frisk._

“ _You are playing with fire,”_ Alucard cautioned. _“Dracula’s minions are ruthless and craven.”_

Chara laughed. “The bourgeois upper crust of the castle, perhaps! But the underlings, the underclass.. a little bit of genuine _respect_ goes a long, long way. Besides… you aren’t too different from these creatures here, are you… son of Dracula?”

Alucard glared at Chara. “That _creature_ was my father only in blood.”

“Believe me,” Chara insisted, “I was not impugning your character in the slightest. I understand perfectly—I had no love for my blood parents either. I merely wished to show you the error in your thinking.”

Alucard was about to respond, but then winced and grimaced in pain, and in the blink of an eye, he had transformed, his eyes reverting once again from shimmering gold to deep, dull red, his hair darkening from pale gold to a glossy sable. What a horrible transformation!

“Are you all right, Alucard?”

“ _My apologies,”_ he said. _“I’m afraid I have… precious little time in_ _this_ _form. I don’t suppose you would understand.”_

Poor guy. Despite Alucard’s assertion to the contrary, Chara could relate. “More than you know. I-in fact, it took me quite a while for me to have a ‘true form’ of my own, s-so to speak.” They could feel themselves going red in the face. Oh dear. “If—if you’d ever like to talk, Alucard, I am quite well versed in these things, and I’m sure—”

The mirror softly chimed and Chara, still blushing like a schoolgirl with a crush, welcomed the diversion. “Excuse me,” Chara told Alucard, trying very hard not to stumble over their own tongue, “I have another call on the line.”

Chara tapped the mirror’s face and Alucard’s face disappeared, replaced by the face of a willowy dryad with cherry blossom hair. Chara’s disposition instantly became sunnier. It was such a relief to escape Alucard’s impromptu interrogation session. “If it isn’t Willowrot! What can I do for you?”

Willowrot began to babble excitedly about the miners’ union. Chara had to tell her to slow down, although they welcomed the dryad’s great enthusiasm. It was no wonder she’d volunteered to organize down in the castle’s slums, where monsters felt the sting of bourgeois oppression the most acutely. The front line of the class struggle, so to speak.

Good lord, Chara was actually starting to _care_ about them, weren’t they? They’d hardly even given a single thought to seizing the throne room recently, despite Alucard’s accusations.

“How goes the strike, darling?” they interrupted.

Willowrot blushed. _“Oh, it’s quite incredible! We killed the foreman!_ _And your brother helped!_ _”_

“Ah, that’s wonderful! Direct action! You’re making good—Did you say _my brother?”_

Willowrot bobbed her head. _“Yes! He’s incredible! I can see how your genius has rubbed off on him, Your Highness! In fact, he’s right here right now, and he wants to talk to you!”_ She leaned in closer and dropped her voice to a whisper. “Is he, er… _single?”_

Chara laughed. “I’m afraid he’s married to his work, sweetie. Put him on the line for me, if you would.”

Willowrot handed the mirror over, and Chara felt a slight sense of vertigo as the mirror’s surface panned across the ceiling before settling on Asriel’s face. And Chara’s little brother was nearly as excited as Chara’s lieutenant.

“ _Chara, I’m down here with Undyne, and it’s incredible! Is this what you’ve been doing all this time?”_

“Why, yes it is, brother. Impressed?”

“ _I’m_ more _than impressed! I’m, um,”_ Asriel scratched his muzzle, _“not sure why you had to lie to me about what you were doing or where you were. Did you think I wouldn’t approve or something?”_

“A little,” Chara admitted. “You know. Dracula’s castle. It’s easy to get the wrong idea.” What they _didn’t_ want to say, although it was certainly true, was that the last time Chara had involved Asriel in an ambitious plot, he’d gotten the both of them killed.

“ _Well I_ do! _And I’m so_ proud _of you, Chara, you little freedom fighter!”_ Asriel smiled brightly enough to warm Chara’s heart. _“But I’ve been so worried with you on your own. Why don’t you come and meet us down here?”_

“‘Worried?’” Chara smirked. “Azzy, you’re becoming our mother.”

The mirror chimed again. Another call on the line. Chara sighed. “Excuse me, I’m going to have to put you on hold.” They tapped the surface of the mirror and the view switched again to show the face of a fierce gargoyle.

“ _Sovereign Chara,”_ the gargoyle announced in a blubbery voice as water gushed from his mouth in streams split by gnarled fangs, _“we’ve found him. The Edison Enright you speak of. As of right now, he is headed for the Arena.”_

“Excellent work, Gauthius. Who accompanies him?”

“ _Three men with light armaments.”_

A Secret Service detail. “Pursue him. Kill the men if necessary, but I want Edison Enright alive at all costs. Pin him down in the Arena and await my arrival.”

The gargoyle saluted. _“At once,_ _sire_ _!”_

Chara tapped twice on the mirror. Asriel’s face popped up. _“What was that about?”_ he asked.

“Oh, you know, administrative stuff. Spearheading a revolution is hard work! Sorry to keep you waiting. I can certainly come down to the mines and meet you. In fact, I’d love to! But I’ve got some errands to run first—”

An arrow whizzed past Chara’s nose. Down the hall, a skeleton archer screeched and plucked another arrow from its quiver. _“There you are! Usurper!”_

 _L_ _oyalist bastards,_ Chara thought.

“ _What was that?”_ Asriel asked.

“Gotta run. Sorry.” Chara tapped the mirror, deactivating it, and slipped it back into their dress, then ran like hell as another arrow nicked their ear.

They had places to be, people to meet, and a senator to kill.

–

The Master Librarian pulled away the mirror as its surface fogged up and then cleared, revealing the wall behind Alucard reflected in the silvered glass. “The Sovereign is quite busy,” said the Librarian, “as you can no doubt tell.”

 _Chara Dreemurr. They certainly_ were _eager to come with us, were they not?_ Alucard wondered. _Is this ‘vanguard’ simply a way to clear a path to the throne room for them?_

This was a mess. Nobody was supposed to enter Dracula’s castle save for himself, Yoko, and Soma. But everything had gone wrong in ways he couldn’t have possibly expected, and there were enough factions at play here to make his head spin.

“I think it’s about time we met them in person,” Alucard mused. “Any idea where they are?”

“If we knew,” said the Librarian, “then of course, any one of us would be capable of revealing their location to the enemy.”

That made sense enough to Alucard, and once again he found himself just slightly out of his element. He was used to fighting against Dracula, a villain far too proud to leave the comfort of his throne room and hide throughout the castle when people like Alucard came knocking on the front door.

 _With any luck,_ thought Alucard, _we will run into them on our way to find Soma and Miss Hakuba._

“Before you leave—” The Librarian snapped his knobbly fingers, summoning a marble-furred fox that walked on its hind legs to his side. The animal carried a knapsack nearly as big as itself. He picked up the sack and lifted the flap, revealing glittering vials of blood.

“Extra potent, Type O blood,” said the Librarian. “Five hundred dollars for the bag.”

“Is it vegan, too?” Yoko glibly asked. “Ethically-sourced and cruelty-free?”

Alucard peered at the bag. With all that blood at his side, he might just be able to maintain his true form all the way to the end… an enticing prospect. He’d so dearly missed this strength, the power flowing under his skin… and of course, the hair.

“Or you could give it to us for free,” Hammer said, “and write it off as a tax-deductible donation.”

“That hardly sounds like good business,” said the Librarian.

“Oh, it _will_ be,” Hammer retorted. “You’re in a _republic_ now. You pay _taxes.”_

The Librarian pulled at the wrinkles on his neck. “A handful of vials for a handful of gold. That, or five hundred for the bag. That is my final offer.”

Hammer relented and took the offer, gingerly handing another vial to Alucard. Alucard took the vial and pinched at the cork.

Then he hesitated. Until now, he’d never been able to savor his freedom—he’d only ever gained it for a precious little time in the heat of battle. And he’d only been able to claim it through blood sacrifice—it made him sick, indulging his cravings so.

“Whose blood,” he asked again, “is this?”

Hammer grabbed Alucard by the arm. “It’s mine, okay? Now let’s make like a tree and get out of here.”

“Wait.” Alucard held up his hand. “One more thing.” He walked into the midst of the vanguard encampment, swiped a bundle of cloth, and strode out with it.

“Hey, you—you have to pay for that—” the old librarian protested.

“These are _my_ clothes,” Alucard insisted, throwing on a white dress shirt, tying a cravat around his neck, and buttoning up a black waistcoat before shrugging into a long, gold-decorated black greatcoat. He threw a sable cape over his shoulders, fastening it by a clasp around his neck to hold it in place. “I shall not pay a cent for what is mine.”

“Y-yes, sir,” the librarian meekly replied.

As the three of them walked away, Yoko took Alucard’s hand in hers. “Blood overpowers the seal, doesn’t it? Temporarily, at least?”

Alucard nodded.

“That must be hard on you.”

Alucard nodded yet again. To be reduced to such base predation simply to regain a sense of his identity, a sense of his own body and his own strength, was nearly as much a torment as the seal itself.

“When we’re through with this,” Yoko said with a determined grin, “I’ll do whatever I can to break that seal for good, Alucard.”

“Then let us get through this quickly.”

Alucard, Yoko, and Hammer, restocked and rearmed with the Vanguard’s help, delved deeper into the castle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Someone's got a crush...


	28. A Fleeting Respite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Soma and Mina have a moment to themselves.

_Everyone in Japan spoke much, much faster than young Soma Cruz, only almost fourteen years old, had anticipated. His ears could barely keep up with their tongues. It made him feel slow and stupid. He still had to pull out his phone if he wanted to hold any sort of conversation beyond simple introductions. And on top of that, all the kids at school could tell he was only half-Japanese, never mind how many issues he had speaking the language, so they had even_ more _material to mock him over than the ones he’d had to deal with back at home!_

 _Did his mom and dad_ really _think he could handle this? This was_ embarrassing. _Everyone talked up how wonderful “foreign language immersion” was. No one said it made you feel like a socially stunted reject everywhere you went. And to think his parents said he’d make new friends here!_

 _From the moment he’d stepped off the plane, he’d just kept his headphones pressed snugly against his ears. The universal symbol of “don’t talk to me,” just in case anybody_ wanted _to._

_He sat on the park bench, thumbing through an ebook on his phone and squinting through the dappled rays of sunlight at the screen—some high fantasy swords-and-sorcery story he couldn’t really get into. One of the albums from his grandpa’s collection filled his ears._

_Yup. This was the life. Oh, yeah, he sure was enjoying his time here in Japan. Alone. Doing pretty much the same stuff he did back home in America, except somehow with_ less _friends than before, if you could_ have _less than zero friends._

_Soma stretched his legs, tried to shift his phone to cut down on the glare, and turned up his music._

_And then, as luck would have it, someone ran right past him and nearly tripped over his legs. Soma reflectively tucked his legs in as girl in front of him with hair as red as fire stumbled and picked herself up._

_She bowed and immediately started babbling at him. Soma pulled his headphones off and caught several very formal apologies amid the stream of words that went by too quickly for him to make out, and something about a book…_

_He held up his hands. “Um._ G-Gomenasai. _Sorry. Er—are you—uh—”_

_Well. There went what little foreign language skills Soma had._

_The girl’s verbal torrent came to a halt. She spoke slowly and deliberately. “Do you speak English, mister?”_

Mister? _Oh, great, here they come, the old man jokes. Kids back at home said he looked like he’d had both progeria and Botox_ _(_ _Soma had always thought they must’ve had some help from the older kids, because those insults were pretty sophisticated for a bunch of_ _nimrods_ _)_ _._ _Here he had to deal with_ _more general remarks_ _as well_ _about him being a_ hafu, _about not belonging here, about how he should just go back to his own country and stop pretending to be Japanese_ _(although, Soma wanted to make perfectly clear, he would be happy to)_ _…_

“ _S-sir, if it’s not_ _any_ _trouble—_ _they_ _ran away with my books—” Then the girl caught a better look at his face. “Oh, I’m sorry, I thought you were…_ _um,_ _an_ _adult_ _—”_

 _She seemed so genuinely sorry that Soma had no choice but to assume she hadn’t been making fun of his hair. “Uh, calm down,_ _it’ll be all right_ _—_ _What’s your name?_ _”_

“ _M-Mina.”_

“ _Mina?” That was a cute name. “_ _My name’s Soma._ _Someone stole your_ books?”

_Mina nodded._

“ _What kind of books?”_

“ _Theology,” she said. “_ _R—religio_ _n_ _. Some books_ _about…”_ _She struggled for a few seconds to find the right English word._ _“…_ _M_ _ythology.”_

_Soma barely suppressed a rude chuckle. “What, are you training to be a priest?”_

_Mina nodded again. “_ _Shrine maiden_ _. And t_ _hey’re more like, er… several people. And—and they do this_ _each_ _week…”_

“ _Stealing from a priestess? That’s low.”_

“ _Actually, I am a shrine maiden. And actually, they’re very tall,” said Mina. “And merciless.”_

 _Soma stood up, letting his headphones rest around his neck,_ _and cracked his knuckles_ _. “Well I’ll show them what merciless means.”_

_A few minutes later, with quite a lot more blood dribbling from his nose than he’d expected, he proudly handed Mina’s satchel back to her. She took it from him, cringing at the sight of his bruised and bloodied face but grateful all the same for Soma’s chivalry._

_Mina hugged him. Soma didn’t think people here could be_ this _huggy, especially with complete strangers. He thought that was more of a French or Italian thing. “Thank you very much, Mister Soma!”_

“ _Please, please, Mr. Soma is my dad’s name. I’m just Soma.”_

“ _Thank you, Soma.” Mina just stood there for a few seconds, gazing at him with her mouth slightly agape. “I-Is your hair_ supposed _to be that white?”_

_There it was. Soma sighed and rolled his eyes. “Yeah, I don’t bleach it or anything—”_

“ _I love it!” Mina’s eyes brightened. “But don’t people tease you for it?”_

 _She…_ loved _his hair? “Oh, yes, they do. Or,_ did.” _Soma crossed his arms. “_ _But you see, n_ _o one messes with_ the _Soma Cruz twice… and lives.”_

 _Mina tugged at a lock of her own brilliantly-red hair. “I get teased for mine too! Everybody_ _asks if_ _I_ _color_ _it_ _!”_ _She smiled. “Do you…_ _Er,_ _the_ _Hakuba Shrine_ _outside_ _town._ _I live there._ _Would you want to come see it?”_

 _Soma was taken aback._ _Did he just make a_ friend? _“S-sure. I’d love to. Oh, um—do you like music? Like…_ old _music?”_

“ _Old… music? Like… Mozart?”_

 _Soma offered his headphones to Mina. “Listen to_ this . _They’re called_ Yes _and they’re from the 1970s!”_

–

For what felt like an eternity, Soma’s world was the roar of rushing water in his ears and the constant pummeling of the current. He held onto Mina with a dead man’s grip, his arms wrapped around her middle as the two of them tumbled through the waterways of Dracula’s castle. He kicked his legs and struggled to right himself, although he couldn’t tell with even the slightest degree of certainty which way was up in this frothy maelstrom. His lungs ached. A few times, he breached the surface, poking his head out and coughing the water out of his lungs before the wild waters drove him back under.

Finally, he felt solid ground underneath his body. Waves lapped at him, dragging at his coat with a gentle touch as they drew back. Beaten, battered, and bruised, he lay there, Mina pressed between his body and the soft rough sand sodden as a drowned rat.

Soma struggled to his knees, his body aching and muscles burning. Around him was a dark grotto, lit only by the ghostly light from rusted lanterns hanging on the slick and mossy walls. Rippling water filled the cavern, and in the distance, a veil of water blanketed the far walls, filling the cavern with a dull, echoing roar. The tattered and splintered remains of an ancient galleon lay dashed against the beach, its deck and hull gaping open like exposed ribs.

The flames in the lanterns were all a ghoulish radium-green and cast a pallor on Mina’s face, rendering her skin green and her lips and the hair plastered to her skin nearly black.

 _No, no, no…_ Soma ran his hand across her cheek, cold and damp, down her neck. It was all cold. _Please, no, not Mina, anyone but her, if she’s dead, the last thing I did was drag her under with me… Oh, god, what have I done?_

Everything that had happened here, that had happened to him, that had happened to Mina. It was all his fault. He’d done nothing wrong but be at the wrong place at the wrong time. And if they were _right_ about him being Dracula… then all this pain, everything Mina had been forced to suffer through, was because he’d had the misfortune of being born in the first place.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispered, tears welling up in his eyes, as salty as the briny underground lake he and Mina had fallen into. “I’m so sorry, Mina, please…”

He fumbled with her cold wrist, dreading what he might find. There it was. A pulse. Her heart still beat. Soma dragged Mina’s limp body out of the water, knelt over her, and brought his lips close to hers, breathing into her lungs.

His first kiss, and Mina’s too, and it had to be the kiss of life. Soma had never thought, not consciously at least, it would have been Mina, and had never imagined it would be so unromantic. He was hunched over her like some sort of goblin with one hand pinching her nose shut and the other hand pressed against her carotid artery while he locked lips. Mina finally coughed up a bit of water mixed with bile that got right into Soma’s mouth.

Mina woke up, sucking air into her lungs between coughing fits and shivering spells. Her soaked and dripping robes clung to her body. Soma held her tight, hardly able to contain his joy that she was breathing once again, sniffling as he forced back tears. He didn’t often cry—before today, the last time he’d shed a tear was the night before his parents had sent him to live in Japan, so far away from the only home he knew. He was almost embarrassed to let Mina see him like this.

[Are you all right?] Soma asked.

Mina nodded weakly.

Soma pulled her up with him as he pushed himself to his feet, his coat hanging heavy on his shoulders. His ruined boots sank into the black sands as he trudged across the shoreline with Mina in tow, heading toward the ship in the distance. It had nearly been split in half, and while the stern was straight, the bow had twisted and its deck was askew. “Look, Mina,” he said, pointing at the wreckage. “A Spanish galleon.”

“How do you know it’s Spanish?” Mina asked.

“Because if it were a _Dutch_ galleon, it’d be the _Flying Dutchman,”_ Soma replied. Mina didn’t so much as smile.

He slipped into the ruined ship, stumbling against the crooked and tilted floors, and the wreck creaked around him. It hadn’t seemed quite so large in the distance, but as Soma entered it, he felt like an ant. And for this huge wrecked ship to be fitting so comfortably in this cavern underscored how massive Dracula’s castle really was.

Soma made his way up the galleon’s four decks to the stern of the ship, where the captain’s quarters would be. As his eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, he found himself able to discern shapes in the room—but only barely. It seemed nearly intact, although the windows were smashed and the furniture was all askew, and moss and lichens crept down the walls. Scorch marks blackened the rug and soot blanketed the shattered glass stern windows, but Soma would have been surprised to see it even half as livable as it was.

There was a bed in the corner, its sheets rumpled yet dry, or at least as dry as anything could be here. A queen-sized bed, to boot. Soma let himself and Mina fall onto it. The sheets were rough and the mattress was nearly rock-hard, but as the saying went, any port in a storm would do. Mina buried herself in the blankets, still shivering, as Soma used the soul-magic channeled through his hands to heal her scrapes and bruises.

 _It’s only a matter of time before I find myself staring at her neck,_ he mused, disgusted not only at the very idea, but at the nagging worry in his head that it wouldn’t be long before he _wasn’t_ disgusted _._

There was something fundamentally _wrong_ with him, wrong with every inch of him, and Soma had known it his whole life, although he hadn’t been aware of it until now. He stepped back, dazed and racked with a deep sense of woe, the floorboards creaking against his boots the only sound hanging in the air inside the captain’s quarters, and fell into the chair at the captain’s desk, letting his head hang.

Soma thought about the bloodlust he’d felt fighting King Crimson. It hadn’t been a desire for revenge, or even a purely selfish hatred. For just a brief moment, he’d wanted to _devour_ him like a wolf devours a deer—but not for food, not for sustenance, but out of pure hatred.

Maybe it was true—maybe he _was_ fated to be the next lord of this castle. The next Dracula. Maybe there was something growing inside him, festering, like an alien embryo but worse because instead of bursting out of his chest like a xenomorph it would just _become_ him and he wouldn’t even notice until he was past the point of no return—

Soma looked at his hand, half expecting to see sharp claws where his fingernails were.

He closed his eyes and slipped into his mental locus, allowing the imaginary library to coalesce around him as the ambient sounds of the creaking wreck faded away. The library felt more real than ever; he could even _smell_ the dust hanging thick in the air.

Instead of bothering with the shelf of collected souls, Soma headed straight for the mirror and looked his reflection in its dark eyes, his mind filled with questions.

“ _Who are you?”_ he asked.

“ _Who are you?”_ the mirror asked.

“ _Are you Dracula?”_ he asked.

“ _Are you Dracula?”_ the mirror asked.

“ _Why am I here?”_ he asked.

“ _Why am I here?”_ the mirror asked.

“ _Let me go,”_ he said.

“ _Let me go,”_ the mirror said.

Soma blinked. His reflection blinked. And Soma could feel he almost knew what he was looking at. This distorted mirror image of himself—or was _he_ the distorted one?

Or was it _him_ at all?

 _Twin,_ his brain told him. And Soma’s thoughts wandered, and the phrase “vanishing twin syndrome” came unbidden to his mind. A phenomenon in which one out of two or more fetuses died in utero and was absorbed by the other living fetus.

Set aside Dracula. Did he have a twin brother he’d eaten in the womb, and had it come back to haunt him? Or—no, it looked too different, even though it was clearly Soma. Could it even be a twin _sister?_

What _was_ this place, this mental locus, this so-called palace of the mind? Was it a place Soma had constructed with Alucard’s guidance… or had it been waiting for him all this time? And what was it trying to tell him?

Soma put his hand to the mirror, fingertips brushing against its surface, and his reflection did the same. The strange reflection _was_ pretty good-looking, Soma mused, even if it _did_ look like a girl.

 _Why am I seeing this?_ he wondered.

A pair of eyes burning like hot coals opened up over Soma’s shoulder, visible in the mirror as glowing pinpricks in the gloom. He whirled around to face it and saw a black shadow rise up before him, a shadow with his face framed by raven-black hair, springing out from the darkness.

–

[Soma, are you okay?] Mina asked, sitting up and cradling her aching head as Soma’s thoughts snapped back to reality.

[I don’t know,] he said. [How long have I been out?]

[Only for a few minutes,] Mina answered. [You looked like you needed the sleep.]

“I sure did.” Soma stood up, dispelling his strange dream from his mind. “Why don’t you stay here and get some rest? I’ll look for help.”

[We should stick together,] Mina said, reaching out to him. [I-If it isn’t too much trouble, Soma, you could use that one kitsune soul to keep us both warm and dry—]

Soma recoiled as if her touch was poison. “You should _stay away from me._ I’m not human. I’m not a person, I’m a thin shell of—prog rock and pretty hair over a, a— _thing—”_

“That’s not true!”

“I’m allergic to holy water now, Mina,” he snapped. “Don’t you know what that _means?”_

“But…” Mina looked down, averting her eyes from Soma’s face. “It’s just the castle, isn’t it?” She sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as she was trying to convince Soma. “That doesn’t mean anything.”

“You’re not a good liar. _I_ am. What if I’m not Soma anymore, Mina? What if I’m only pretending to be him? What if I’ve already been taken over by the castle? How will you know when it’s too late to stop trusting me, Mina? Haven’t you _seen_ what I’ve done? I’ve seen you clucking your tongue at me all the way through this castle, don’t you pretend that everything’s fine—”

“Do you remember how you dragged me over to your home, the day we met, and you insisted on playing that band and asking how I felt about them?” Mina asked, cutting off Soma as his voice rose in intensity. Her hand clamped around his wrist.

Soma pulled himself free, stumbling across the floor. _“I said, stay away from me!”_

Mina fell back, raising a hand to her bruised cheek. A trickle of blood dribbled from her nose.

Soma looked down at his open palm and saw speckles of blood. He felt wretched. He opened his mouth, but no sound came out.

“I-I’m sorry,” he finally said. “I—I, I would never—you know I would never hit…” He couldn’t stop staring at the blood on his hand.

Mina’s blood.

That was _her_ blood on _his_ hand. He felt like he was about to vomit.

“It’s all right, Soma,” Mina insisted.

“It’s _not_ all right!” Soma fell to the floor as his legs turned to jelly beneath him, his chest heaving. “It—It’s not all right!” he sobbed. “H-How could you even _say_ that after what I just did to you?”

Soma couldn’t get enough air into his lungs. He was hyperventilating. Hot tears streamed down his cheeks and dripped off his chin. “What’s _wrong_ with you, Mina? Why aren’t you _afraid_ of me? W-Why don’t you _hate_ me? Look at me! Look at what I’ve done! I-I—I… I…”

“Soma,” Mina insisted, “do you remember the first album we listened to together?”

Soma was taken aback. _“_ _F-_ _Fragile_ by Yes, released in 1971,” he recited, the answer coming unbidden to his lips. “M-My favorite track was ‘Roundabout.’ You… you thought it was all very strange, but you liked ‘Mood for a Day’ the best.” Somehow, he managed to choke down a whole lungful of air. “A-And it was _you_ who dragged me over to _your_ home,” he added. “Not the other way around.”

Soma had been so eager to have a friend that he’d shared all his grandpa’s old records with her. He’d loved that old stuff even more for it, even if it did give kids another reason to call him _ojisan,_ which had turned to mocking calls of _obasan_ once Soma had started letting his hair grow out _._ Letting the memory of that music come back to him did more to help him relax than anything else could.

The memory felt the way cool and damp soil after a spring rainfall felt on bare feet. Soma basked in it and could feel the acid eating at his mind diminishing.

Mina smiled. “You would start bringing one of those big records over every week, just to see if there was one I’d like as much as you did.”

“Pink Floyd. _Wish You Were Here.”_

“It was always so lonely at the shrine. And you just looked so lonely sitting there with those big antique headphones on.”

“Those weren’t _antique,_ they were just designed for audiophiles—” Soma began, defensively.

“For a while I thought you must have fallen out of a hole in time, to be so obsessed with such old music.”

“You weren’t so hip and with-it yourself,” Soma teased. “Your idea of ‘fun’ was watching nature documentaries and reading big books of mythology.”

Mina blushed. “Y-you said every girl goes through an ancient Egypt phase!”

“Yeah, I mean, even the whole of England went through an ancient Egypt phase back in the 1800s. You know how they’d take mummies—”

“—And grind them up to make brown paint!” Mina covered her mouth. “I couldn’t believe they _did_ that over in Europe!”

“They’d snort the powder like cocaine, too. I wonder if there are any mummies in this castle,” Soma mused, “who’re missing an arm and pissed off because some bloke in a pith helmet—”

“—With one of those curly mustaches and a monocle—”

“—Went and made a painting out of it!” Soma nearly cried, he was laughing so hard.

Mina wiped mirthful tears from her eyes. “Would a vampire pretending to be you remember all this? A-and what about when we found your coat?” Mina asked. “Remember that?”

He remembered how he and Mina had found it in a thrift store for only a couple hundred yen. No holes, no rips, no missing buttons. “Such a low price, it must’ve been cursed,” Soma had joked. Mina had run her fingers through the fur collar and, excitedly foisting it on Soma, remarked on how it matched his hair.

“ _You look pretty,” she told him, in English,_ as he examined the way the coat hung from his shoulders.

“‘ _Pretty?’” Soma repeated._

_[Was that—was that not the correct word?] Mina asked, concerned that she’d embarrassed herself, or him._

_He’d have expected handsome, or even cute, but “pretty” caught him off guard. It might not have been the word Mina had meant to use, but Soma was actually a little flattered. “N-no, no, I—” He stumbled over his words. “ It’s definitely the correct word.” He admired himself in the mirror, the dashing figure cut by the alabaster white coat. It really did match his hair, just like Mina said. For once, those ivory locks didn’t look out of place against the rest of his body._

“It was the first time you looked… I think the phrase,” Mina said, “is… ‘comfortable in your skin?’”

A smile cracked open Soma’s lips. “Wh—what do you mean?”

“I don’t know how to describe it. It’s the same way I feel when I look at Mr. Alucard.”

“Oh, come on, I’m _way_ more charming and charismatic than _him.”_

“I didn’t mean it like _that.”_

“Oh.” What _did_ she mean, then?

“Just that… you’ve always felt like you’re hiding a part of who you are.”

“Nothing but a miserable little pile of secrets.” The phrase, for some reason, awakened a sense of dread in the corner of Soma’s mind. “What part of me am I hiding from you, Mina? …The part that murders people and laughs?” he asked.

“There must be more inside you than _that,_ isn’t there?”

 _Was_ there?

“You know the Wizard of Oz?” he asked.

“Miss Yoko brought it up, too. If she says she’s the good witch, does that make you Dorothy? Or the Tin Man?” Mina asked.

“You calling me heartless?”

“No, no! You have a beating human heart, Soma. You must be the Scarecrow.”

“Oh, so I’m brainless?”

“W-well, you’re certainly not the Cowardly Lion!”

“Maybe I’m the Wicked Witch.”

“N-no, that’s probably your friend Chara,” Mina admitted.

“Please stop calling them my friend. They tried to have you _killed.”_ _Oh, wait,_ Soma thought. _So did I._

“I don’t think they _meant_ for their werewolves to start behaving like that,” Mina insisted.

“Yeah, and I’ve got a bridge to sell you. Anyway… Dorothy and Toto and the Wicked Witch were just the first book in the series. I wasn’t really into the books,” Soma admitted, “but there was one story I remember… about an orphan boy caught up in a quest to find the long-lost Princess Ozma of Oz.”

“He finds her, doesn’t he?” Mina predicted.

“In a way,” Soma said, nodding. “He and his friends come to the end of their journey and discover that the princess was hidden away by an enchantment for her own protection…” Soma drew a sharp breath. “The boy was Princess Ozma all along.”

Mina looked at him bemusedly, not quite seeing where he was going with them. “Are you saying you think you’re a princess?”

“What? No! Alucard and his friends are part of this… anti-Dracula task force, right? If they get to the end of their quest and find out that—that it was _me_ all along, that _I’m_ Dracula, hidden in this human body, hidden even from myself…” Soma swallowed hard. “Won’t they try to kill me?”

“They wouldn’t!”

Soma drew his sodden coat around himself. “I can feel Dracula growing inside me. But I don’t want to _be_ what I’m becoming. I just want to be _normal_ again.”

“I don’t want you to turn into a monster, of course, but…” Mina caressed the wound on her arm. “Miss Yoko says this bite is nothing, but… who knows? If you _are_ a monster, then maybe we will be the same.” She fished in the pockets of her sodden robes, her eyes lighting up as she pulled a glinting metal charm from her pocket. “Hold out your hand, please, Soma.”

Mina pulled herself out of the bed, crossing the distance between herself and Soma, and pressed the charm into his palm. Like her hands, the surface of the metal ornament was chilly, and he could feel its weight in his hand like an anchor.

Soma looked at the charm lying in his open palm. It was an _omamori,_ an amulet of protection from Mina’s shrine. Traditionally, omamori were not made of metal, but it was just Mina’s luck: a paper amulet would have surely disintegrated after all she’d been through.

[If you truly want it to,] she said, [this will keep you safe.] She closed Soma’s fingers around it and smiled. At once he felt a weight lift from his chest, and his head felt clearer. [Hold it close, and no matter what happens, no matter what anybody else says you are, whether you’re a human or a vampire or anything in between, you’ll still be _you_ _.]_

“I don’t know who _I_ am anymore,” Soma replied. “It’s not just about the whole Dracula thing. I keep seeing myself—not _myself,_ but _different.”_

“How different?”

“Different like…” Soma’s mouth went dry. “I don’t know how to describe it,” he lied. “Just different.”

Mina wrapped her arms around him—tentatively at first, as if she were made of glass, but she slowly sank into his arms. For the first time in this castle Soma felt _safe,_ not only from outside threats, but from himself. “I’ve always felt different, too. You are not alone on your own, Soma. I am alone with you.”

The tip of Mina’s nose just barely brushed against his, and Soma wondered in that moment if to Mina, he might just be a little _more_ than a friend. And did he feel the same about her? Was Mina _more_ than just his best friend? How would Soma know if she was?

“You’re alone with me…?” Soma parroted.

Their lips met—Mina’s were still wet and tasted faintly of sea salt. Soma didn’t know what to do; embarrassed, he just stood there, his eyes closed. Mina evidently wasn’t sure what to do either, and broke contact just a brief second later. More of an embarrassed peck than a kiss. [I’m sorry,] she said, flustered as she stared down at her shoes. [I’ve never done this before.]

[Neither have I. Would you like to try again?]

[Maybe later,] said Mina as Soma gently tousled her damp, slick hair and letting those brilliant red locks flow around his fingers, catching on the snags and snarls that had popped up over the course of this strange, perilous journey.

She did the same with his. Funny how it had been _that_ that had brought the two of them together. Mutual bonding over hair color. His ghostly snow-white, hers bright red. Like the sun and the moon.

“Mina… if I ever seem like I’m not myself again, please be smart and run away,” Soma told her. “I don’t want the last thing you see to be my face.”

Mina patted him on the back. “Soma, I may not be as worldly or experienced as you,” she said, stumbling over her words, “but I am not a child. I threw salt into the face of an evil god today. I can handle _you.”_

“Just put your safety before mine, okay? From now on?”

Mina nodded. “If I must, Soma.”

As he pulled away from Mina, Soma glanced behind his back and caught sight of an unearthly blue glow shining through the skeletal gaps in the ship’s hold. Pocketing the charm and stepping out of the captain’s quarters, he crept into the hold, carefully exploring the ship for any hidden dangers. Mina trailed behind him, but stayed a safe distance back, just in case something happened or Soma ran afoul of a trap. He second-guessed every step he took as the ship creaked and gently swayed around him as if it had set out to sea.

He carefully lowered himself through a hatch into the hold at the fore of the ship, following the blue light. It was there in the hold that he saw it—the source of the glow.

Two swords lay on the floor. One glowed with an unearthly blue light, casting stark and long shadows across the hold, the interplay of light and shadow transforming dangling ropes and debris into illusory snakes and misshapen monsters.

Both blades were beautiful—the one that glowed was a long and thick two-handed longsword with a spotless blade of blue-white steel and a gold-plated hilt, a sapphire set into its pommel; the second blade was smaller, shorter, more dainty but more elegantly-shaped, and covered in sparkling gold from tip to tip.

Well, Soma _was_ currently unarmed, and here were two swords ripe for the taking. He plucked the glowing blade off the floor, surprised at its weight. He needed both hands just to lift it.

The light instantly went out. Soma gave the heavy blade a few experimental waves.

[Did you break it?] Mina asked.

Soma picked up the second sword—a much lighter one, easier to swing—as he heard indistinct shouting in the distance. He moved out of the hold, dragging the larger blade behind him as he held the other blade forward.

Without the slightest hesitation, Soma let the heavy formerly-glowing sword drop to the deck, readying the golden blade. A dark shadow swooped down, and his blade clashed against a sword made from pure golden fire, illuminating the face of its wielder in flickering amber light. In a matter of seconds the sword had flown out of Soma’s hands and his arms were pinned against his sides by a tall, strong furry creature who was… _hugging_ him?

“Soma, it’s so good to see you again!” Asriel squeezed him tight as if he’d known Soma for years and hadn’t seen him in months. Soma had _never_ been hugged like this before: Mina didn’t have the upper body strength for it. “I’m so sorry we lost each other—it won’t ever happen again, I swear on my family name—”

Asriel eased up on the pressure and Soma, released, immediately passed out, the interior of the wrecked galleon whirling around him as his legs crumpled beneath him.

In his restless dreams, he saw a woman.

 _It was a winter’s evening when she stepped into his castle,_ _and the sun had already set hours ago. Keeping her thick winter cloak drawn tight about her, she stood beneath the chandelier in the massive, gold-festooned foyer, basking in its light and its warmth._

_The lord of the manor took slow, deliberate steps down the staircase to approach the traveler._

“ _Who,” he asked, “dares intrude on me at such a late hour?”_

“ _Intrude?” the woman repeated. “I am a_ guest, _sir, and if you ask me, your hospitality desperately needs work.” She drew back her hood, revealing golden hair and piercing green eyes. “I’ve been here for ages, sir, and you haven’t even offered to take my coat.”_

“ _And who might I have the honor of entertaining tonight?” he asked. This woman’s attitude was amusing enough that he almost was not even offended by her demands._

“ _Fahrenheit,” she replied. “Lisa Fahrenheit. I am,” she added with no touch of modesty whatsoever, “a physician.”_

“ _A physician. Has the outside world changed so much since I have been away?” he laughed._

“ _No patient of mine knows I am a woman.” She smiled. “And those who do hardly care once I’ve saved his or her life.” She hung her heavy coat on a gilded banister, as if daring the castle’s master to speak against her impropriety._

“ _I’ve heard rumors,” said Fahrenheit, “that within this castle, one can find tools of medicine far beyond what even the most educated of men can fathom. I would like to see them.”_

“ _Do you believe every rumor you hear?”_

“ _Only those that bring hope, sir.”_

 _He laughed. “Miss Fahrenheit. Do you even know who I_ am?”

“ _I heard you were the Devil himself, Sir Dracula.”_

“ _And yet you make demands of me?” Dracula approached her, his cloak swirling around him like a living entity, and despite the flash of fear in her eyes she refused to shrink away from him. “Woman, you are either very brave, or very stupid,” he growled._

“ _Well,” she said, looking Dracula right in the eyes, “I am quite well-read, Sir Dracula… so I suppose I must be very brave.”_

_Dracula bared his fangs in a wicked smile . He found himself… intrigued, more than anything, with this impudent, imperious young woman._

–

Soma woke up on the black sands beside the wrecked galleon. Beside him hovered a ball of golden fire, hot but benign, that had dried him off. The wet sand and mud that had coated his clothes was now a cracked and hardened paste.

Asriel knelt beside him and Mina, tending the magical flame. “Feeling better, Soma?” he asked. “I hope I didn’t shock you.”

“No, sir.”

“You’re not feeling better?” Concern flashed across the king’s face. “Is there anything I can do? Tea? Coffee?”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” Mina said, with a polite bow. “It is an honor to meet you.”

“The honor is all mine, Miss Hakuba,” Asriel insisted. “I’m sorry your stay in this castle has been so miserable. When we get back to Earth, I’ll make it up to you.”

Mina looked perplexed. “Excuse me? ‘Back to Earth?’”

“We’re inside a solar eclipse,” Soma told her, a little embarrassed he hadn’t had a chance to tell her earlier. “I know it sounds stupid. Don’t ask how it works. It’s magic or something.”

“And we’d better get the two of you up to the base camp posthaste,” said Asriel. “We don’t have much time before totality ends. Less than two hours, I’d say.”

Undyne picked up the big two-handed blade Soma had left behind with one hand as the other monsters climbed around the galleon’s wreckage. “Soma! Do you know what this blade is?” she shouted, excited.

“This galleon belonged to an arch-demon here called Noxifer,” Asriel explained. “The rest of the monsters down here rebelled against him, and now they’re…” He took a look at the creatures scurrying about the ship. “Well, I guess you’d say they’re expropriating his ill-gotten wealth.”

Undyne shoved the two-handed sword (its blade tarnished) into the sand in front of Soma, followed by its smaller golden cousin. “Look at these things! They’re beautiful!

Asriel eyed the two swords, bemused, as his conjured flames cast flickering reflections on the blades. “I won’t disagree with you on that, Captain…”

She pointed to the golden sword. “You know what this is? It’s the _Joyeuse,_ a sword commissioned by Emperor Charlemagne!” Undyne seemed to _really_ know her swords, which didn’t surprise Soma. He’d seen the inside of her house.

Undyne then tugged on the larger sword. “And this! This is the _Claimh Solais!”_

“‘Cleave Solish?’” Soma stumbled over the name. “Sounds like an expensive veggie cutter.”

“It’s a _legendary_ sword,” Undyne insisted.

 _Looks more like a legendary piece of shit,_ Soma thought.

Undyne went on. “Wielded by Nuadha of the Silver Hand, it was also called the ‘Sword of Light!’ Soma, was this _seriously_ just lying there in that ship?”

Soma nodded.

“Thought it was supposed to glow, though,” Undyne said, furrowing her brow. Soma tried very hard not to look like he’d accidentally broken it.

“Well, you know legends, Undyne,” said Asriel. “They aren’t always true-to-life.” He grabbed the hilt and pulled the blade out, and it immediately came to life, blazing with a hard blue light. Asriel squinted against it, then set the sword down. The blade kept shining.

Soma wondered if it had just been a fluke when he’d touched it, so he reached out and grabbed the hilt once again.

The light immediately went out.

“ _What did you do?”_ Undyne screeched, shaking him by the shoulder. _“Did you break it?”_

“ _I don’t know!”_

“ _It’s practically the Irish_ Excalibur _and you_ broke _it!”_

Asriel picked up the Claimh Solais. Its blade once again began to glow. “I think it might just not like you, Soma.”

Well, that was great. Yet another thing in the castle that didn’t like him. Soma was almost starting to get used to it.

On the way to the mining camp, Soma filled Asriel and Undyne in on everything he knew. Or rather, _almost_ everything. His own doubts about his identity he kept to himself.

“So Chara thinks they’re Dracula.” Undyne crossed her arms. “Called it.”

“They don’t think they’re Dracula,” Soma clarified, much to Asriel’s relief.

“Yeah, they just wanna take over the castle. I knew it. _I knew it!”_ Undyne stomped off.

“Undyne—that’s absurd!” Asriel said. “Get back here!” He grabbed her by the wrist. “Chara isn’t some evil mastermind.”

“That’s right!” Willowrot chimed in, clinging to Asriel. “They’re our _hero!”_

Undyne pulled the two apart like a chaperone at a high school dance. Although he did his best to seem impassive in the name of politeness, Asriel seemed relieved.

Soma shrugged. “They aren’t the most evil thing in this castle,” he admitted.

“Thank you, Soma,” said Asriel.

“But they’re pretty gung-ho about tracking down and murdering that senator guy we ran into.”

“Enright?” Asriel asked.

“The Spanglegate guy?” Undyne asked.

“Who?” Willowrot asked.

“They think _he’s_ gunning for the throne,” said Soma. “I dunno what could be between those them and Enright, but it seems personal.”

“So when Chara said they were going to meet me down here…” Asriel stroked his muzzle. “They _did_ say they had an errand to run…”

“Senator Enright isn’t a bad guy,” Undyne said, “just stupid. Alphys likes to say he had the cognitive capacity of an eel pie.”

Asriel stopped in his tracks. “Undyne… you might be a little right,” he said.

“…A _little?_ _”_

“We have to find them. We have to _stop_ them. Willowrot. You’re in touch with Chara’s vanguard. Can you tell me where they’re headed right now?”

After a few minutes of consulting with her hand mirror, Willowrot had the answer. “Sovereign Chara is headed for the Arena—just south of the mines.”

Asriel pulled Undyne to his side. “Captain, we don’t have a moment to lose.” Undyne nodded in agreement.

“With all due respect, Azzy, I _knew_ they were up to no good.”

“We aren’t going to hurt them,” Asriel insisted.

“We _might_ have to hurt them,” Undyne told him.

Asriel patted Soma’s shoulder. “Tag along with us up to the arena, Soma. But when we get there, head on up to the front gate while we deal with Chara. Okay?”

Within a few minutes, Soma was trudging behind the king and his captain, dragging the Claimh Solais behind him despite its inconvenient weight (mainly out of spite against the misbehaving blade). He fiddled with the amulet in his pocket as he cast intermittent backwards glances at Mina and the vanguard cell bringing up the rear and hoped that luck would see him back home in one piece.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well, at least now Asriel's here to be Soma's surrogate dad.
> 
> "Hey, don't let the whole Dracula thing get you down! I used to be an evil flower, you know, and look at me now!"


	29. Then Came the Last Days of May, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, we shed a light on Chara's recent past.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: This chapter features more gruesomely-depicted violence than previous chapters.

Two men in black suits scampered across a sandy arena, the hems of their ragged jackets and pants dirty and caked with mud. Chara stood on the ramparts, where in another time a Caesar or Nero or Caligula might have stood passing judgment on the gladiators below. Now, of course, there were no gladiators, save for their skeletal remains (some of which were still animate). And Chara was the furthest thing from an emperor at the moment.

The two men fell to their knees, gasping and panting. Chara’s vanguard had done an excellent job of running them ragged, but Chara almost would have preferred if the two had been in perfect health. Then they would be able to coax more screams from the two of them.

 _Fire_ flashed before their eyes. _Gasoline,_ the wretched smell, _burning pines_ , trees popping like balloons, _screams._ Gunfire—

“ _The villainy you teach me, I will execute… and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.”_ Chara lifted their leg and placed their foot on the balcony’s dusty sandstone railing, then leaped off it, landing on the ground below. As they closed in on the two men, they felt for all the world like a cheetah who had chased a gazelle to the point of exhaustion and now prepared to feast on its prey.

“Hi there, Eddy,” Chara said, their voice oozing sweetness as Edison Enright grew close enough for them to see all the details in his terrified face. “I’m sorry I can’t look my best for the next President of the United States, but…” They tightened the scarlet ribbon around their collar, which had started to grow loose. “It’s been quite a day. I’m sure you can relate.”

The senator’s last remaining Secret Service escort drew his gun. Chara resisted the urge to flinch with all their might, grabbed him by the wrist, and burned the bones to ash. The man screamed as the gun flopped out of his useless hands.

As Chara walked past the disarmed agent, they put a finger to his chest. “Shut up.” The man dropped dead instantly, his heart burned to a shriveled cinder. The echoes of his agonized wails still bounced off the walls.

“You’re looking good, Edison—for a man with so much dust on his suit.”

–

A world away and months ago, it was a sunny day in late February. Birds chirped, flowers craned their necks toward the sun, and insects crawled through the soil just as they would on any other day. The sky was blue, the sun was gold, the clouds were white and wispy and floated like strands of unflavored cotton candy caught in the wind.

Chara stared out of the castle’s great high arched windows and wished it had been storming instead (they still remembered when Februaries used to be cold and miserable). They scowled up at the heavens. Down below, in the foothills of the mountain, the kingdom bustled—it, too, seeming to go on oblivious to the fate about to befall it.

As they scrolled through their phone’s news feed, Chara ran into autoplaying video after autoplaying video. Always with the sound blaring at its highest volume.

“ _Renewed protests rocked Washington, DC for the third straight day as anti-austerity and antiwar demonstrators took to the streets. While unemployment climbs to thirty percent, opposition leaders accuse President Edison Enright of inflaming tensions along the United States’ borders and promoting military action abroad to distract from widespread civic unrest and massive coastal flooding. Despite the turmoil gripping the nation, President Enright, now beginning his campaign for his fourth term in office virtually unopposed…”_

The details were different, but the story was the same. It was always the same.

Chara slipped the phone back into their pocket and pressed their palms against the window, resting their forehead against the glass. Beneath the castle tower, the city center pulsed with life. Even when your neighbors were threatening to kill you, you still needed to buy food, send your children to school, clock in and clock out at the daily grind. There was something reassuring about that—although it struck Chara in the depths of their melancholy as foolish and futile.

They pulled out their phone again. There were days where Chara would give anything to not be a king, to live somewhere in some privileged sector of society where they could go a day without ever concerning themselves with the machinations of despotic, saber-rattling rulers and the poundings of distant war drums. There were even days they wished they could be the rich son or daughter of some old fossil who made their billions pillaging poor people.

“ _In local news, border security surrounding Mount Ebott has been put on high alert in light of recent threats by the Enright administration. Rumor has it that high-ranking court officials, including Sovereign Chara, have repeatedly asked Parliament to reconsider its…”_

“You wanted to see me, Your Highness?”

The voice startled Chara out of their reverie. A high, quiet, mousy voice that had followed them for over fifteen years, through thick and through thin.

“Frisk.”

Frisk was the Hero of the Underground, the one who tore down the Barrier and released the Kingdom of Mount Ebott from ages in captivity, and Chara’s best friend and closest confidant. Soft-spoken, yet charismatic and flirtatious, always seeing the best of humans and monsters alike. They were a perfect ambassador for the kingdom: Frisk always had the right words for every situation—although that was less from some preternatural charisma or telepathic ability and more due to the fact that they could just keep turning back time until they did it right.

Chara’s phone still chattered in their hand.

“ _This morning, a plot by anti-government extremists to bomb Parliament Hall was foiled by a Royal Guard strike team led by Brigadier General Undyne. The leader released a full confession hours later detailing his plans to overthrow the government and install a puppet regime sympathetic to the United States. The Enright Administration has already vehemently disavowed the link and leveled accusations against the Guard of drawing up a false confession…”_

Chara took a deep breath, trying to quell the anxious churning in their stomach. “It’s all happening again, Frisk.” The details were always different, but the broad strokes always matched.

Frisk put their arm around the beleaguered monarch, its weight bringing little comfort. “I know.”

Chara swallowed hard. They pushed down the lump in their throat, along with their pride. They didn’t want to ask this of their dear friend and ad-hoc sibling, especially not now. “We have to go back again, Frisk.” Back to their last save point (for lack of a more apt term). “Back to November 17.”

Chara felt Frisk’s arm leave their shoulder. Frisk shook their head. “We can’t keep doing this, Chara.”

“Please. Frisk, I can do it _right_ this time. We _—we_ can do it right.” Chara’s voice rose unexpectedly. “One more reset, please, that’s all I’ll ever ask of you again.” They put their hands on their counterpart’s shoulders, not to comfort them but to control them, digging into the soft cotton of Frisk’s blue sweatervest.

“ _This_ was supposed to be the last one,” Frisk argued, batting Chara’s hands aside and backing away. “How many more times will it take?”

“Just this once. Please, I _swear_ , Frisk, we just need one more try.”

“You keep saying that.” Frisk took a deep breath. “But… look at us. Every time we’ve done this, it ends the same way. It’s only until May—we don’t have the _time_ to change the course of history in six months. You made your bed a lot longer than four months ago, and no matter how many times we go back to November, it’s still going to be the same bed!”

“ _I_ made my bed? Are you saying this is _my_ fault?”

“What? No, of _course_ not—I just mean that we don’t have time to stop what’s coming!”

“Then go further back.”

“You know I can’t _choose_ like that. I can go back to November or I can go a _ll_ the way back. Back to the beginning. Back to the Underground.”

“If that’s what it takes, then _do_ it.”

Frisk looked away. They paused. “I can’t,” they said.

Chara was incensed, and they couldn’t hide the revulsion in their voice any longer. _“You’re_ supposed to be the determined one,” they growled. “Of all the people to give up, of all the people to let the bombs fall… I always thought it would have been _me,_ not _you.”_ The chattering phone fell to the floor as Chara grabbed Frisk by their cold and clammy wrist. “Don’t you have an ounce of that spirit in your body anymore? _You have to do this.”_

“No, no,” Frisk moaned, “I can’t. Chara, _we_ can’t. We can’t keep doing this. We’ve relived the past four months, five months, six months, ten times already.” Their hands trembled. Their voice cracked. “It’s hell. I—I don’t even remember how old I am, Chara, we’ve gone sixty-four months at _least_ without ever getting through May. I haven’t celebrated my birthday in over _five years!”_

Enraged, boiling blood pumping through their veins, Chara shoved Frisk up against the window and held them against it, pinning them to the glass like a lepidopterist’s pride and joy. “Then they’re all going to _die_ again! We’re going to lose _everything_ , and you’re going to _watch_ it happen, Frisk, and you’ll be the first to say _we could have done something!”_

Frisk’s eyes were wide and frightful. “Chara, please, let me go. You’re scaring me…”

“I’m scaring you.” Chara released their counterpart, letting them slide down to the floor. _“I’m_ scaring _you._ In a few months you’re going to have a _hell_ of a lot more to be scared of! You’ll have your birthday, Frisk, and a week later you’ll get your present, and anyone who’s not wearing SPF one million sunblock is going to have a _really bad day!”_

“We can’t keep doing this,” Frisk repeated. “And it’s not just me, Chara. I can _hear_ you at night. _”_ They looked up with pleading, watery eyes. “Who _else_ is trapped in this hell with us? I—Seventeen years ago, I think—who knows anymore—I promised I’d never turn back time again, because it’s so awful to be stuck like that, living days and weeks and months over and over again, you don’t know if Tuesday comes after Monday anymore…”

“The needs of the many outweigh—”

“I’m sorry.” Frisk took a deep breath and regained their composure, picking themselves up off the floor. “I can’t help you anymore.” Their voice quivered and faltered. “I can’t be your get-out-of-jail-free card. I can’t be your safety net. Not anymore.” Their voice grew harder, angrier. It didn’t suit them. Frisk didn’t get _angry._ “You have to learn—that sometimes… Sometimes you have to live with the consequences of your decisions, Chara.”

Chara couldn’t stand to look at them anymore, and turned their head away from the window. “Then learn to live with yours,” they spat. “Go away.”

Frisk sniffled. “I— _What?”_

“Begone. I never want to hear your whimpering again. Leave. Crawl into a hole somewhere and hide. Let Armageddon pass you by. And when you dig yourself out, don’t you _dare_ mourn the dead. You’ve just given up that _privilege.”_

“Chara, I didn’t mean—”

Chara’s last words to their closest friend of over a decade and the only remaining member of their found family were curt and sharp. “Get out of my sight.”

They did so. Chara didn’t see them go. Their footsteps simply faded into silence, and Chara was left, once again, alone. Their only company now was the tinny voice of the newscaster on their phone.

“ _Rising sea levels have prompted New York governor Claude Sheppard to issue a permanent evacuation order for New York City. This is the second such order in the past five years, as the encroaching ocean renders less and less of the city inhabitable.”_

Chara stared up at the beautiful blue sky, letting their red eyes drift across the pale periwinkle expanse. _“Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks,”_ they whispered. But there were no winds to rage against, no gales to carry their words aloft.

“ _Vice President Bailey and FEMA Director Jones place the blame on the nation’s continued tolerance of ‘corrupting inhuman influences.’ In a show of defiance several in Mount Ebott’s parliament have already…”_

The throne room seemed larger than usual, or perhaps Chara felt smaller. They crossed the length of the room, snapped the blabbering phone’s clamshell case shut, and let the silence engulf them as the young monarch sank into their ornate throne with a deep sigh.

They plucked the heart-shaped locket from their neck, holding it aloft, letting its gold frame and inset ruby gleam and sparkle as it caught the light. With a click, it opened, revealing two postage stamp-sized photos.

On one side, Chara’s adoptive parents—the ones they thought of when they thought the words _mom_ and _dad_. They weren’t here anymore. But Chara could still see the lively twinkle in Toriel and Asgore’s eyes, and for a second, the illusion—the illusion that they were still here with them—hung in the air.

The experimental process to regrow Chara’s body to house their consciousness (and finally give poor Frisk a sense of much-needed privacy) had created an incomplete clone—not viable outside the growing pod. Asgore and Toriel, bless them, had volunteered their own spirit to fill the gaps in the clone’s DNA. It had made Chara truly their child in blood, but at a price: Toriel and Asgore, their souls both linked to the body, had both grown old, far too old and far too quickly, and passed away not even two years later.

They’d told Chara not to grieve. Chara had grieved anyway, but silently.

On the other side of the locket, Chara and Frisk, both smiling, sunlight beating down on them. Twin orphans, split across time and space but united by happenstance, both driven from the world of humans to the world of monsters. Both children of fate.

There was a third side to the locket, another slip of paper that slipped out of the heart-shaped space inside and fluttered to Chara’s lap. It was a ragged little slip of paper, brittle and yellowed, with a crude little stick figure drawn on it with little floppy lop ears and little nubby horns.

As a child, Chara had never been much of an artist. This little scrap doodle had been the best likeness they’d managed to capture of the _third_ Dreemurr sibling, or rather the _first_ Dreemurr, the _original_ Dreemurr, one might say—Asriel.

Chara slipped the drawing back into the locket, over the picture of themselves and Frisk, and snapped the locket shut. Of all of their family, only Asriel had not come back. Well—he had, actually, in the form of a crazed and mutated flower. After a brief moment of lucidity, he had vanished into oblivion.

Chara knew, though, that somewhere out there, in some other world, their brother was alive and well—or at least just alive. They’d visited him once in a dream, long, long ago. Chara sometimes wondered what their brother would look like now, years later. He’d had an eyepatch, they remembered. Maybe now he had a bionic laser eye.

 _Asriel. Mom. Dad. Now Frisk… I don’t have a family anymore,_ thought Chara. _I have nothing left._ It was just them against the world now.

_I have nothing left._

And then, a second later—

_I’ve made a horrible mistake._

They shot out of their throne, stood straight as a rail, and bolted out of the throne room, down the halls, leaping down staircases two, three steps at a time. The castle’s pristine walls blurred past Chara, their violet cloak flapping behind them as their shoes slapped against marble tiled floors.

Chara ran through the royal gardens, through the courtyard, past the castle gates ( _“Your Majesty, what’s the hurry?”_ the gatekeeper asked, but Chara couldn’t hear them through the sound of the wind rushing past their ears).

Their pulse pounded in their chest, their neck, their wrists, their ears; blood sang through their body; a stitch formed in their side, jabbing like a knife under their ribcage with every breath they took; sweat poured down their brow.

Chara stopped at the road running past the castle gates. Cars whizzed by in both directions, filling the air with a dull roar. They looked to their left and right, scanning up and down the sidewalk.

There they were. Frisk was standing on the corner, waiting for the light to change. A tall man with a coat, its collar drawn up to his ears, waited to cross the street next to them.

“Frisk!” Chara took off in their direction. _“Frisk! I’m—”_

They turned their head, recognized their sibling. Their eyes widened, their mouth opened as if they were about to call out in turn.

And then the din of traffic vanished, muted in an instant by the sharp, bestial roar of gunfire. A single shot cut through the air, a flash of muzzle fire, a mist of blood. The long trailing echo of the gunshot mingled with the piercing high-pitched ringing that now filled the air.

The force from the bullet knocked Frisk into the street, their head obscured—almost mercifully—by a bloody haze. Their body ragdolled into the path of oncoming traffic, and the car they landed in front of couldn’t stop quickly enough. Chara couldn’t see any of this at first because, in their shock, they could only see what was directly in front of them.

The man with the gun.

Of _course_ it was a _human._

In any other situation, Chara might have frozen on the spot, rendered immobile by shock and horror. But they kept running for no other reason than because they had been running a second ago, and with their mind shut down by the horrible vision which had passed through their eyes, it was all they could do.

The next minute felt like a dream, and Chara like a passenger in their own body.

The man with the gun turned it on Chara—too late.

A fire burned in Chara’s heart. A fire afforded to them by the blood that flowed through their body, blood that mingled human and monster, commoner and royalty. A fire like their mother’s, a fire like their father’s. It burned in their hands, insubstantial, wispy, almost invisible but silvery when the light caught it just right, heralded by a shimmering heat haze like the haze that came off an asphalt road in the middle of August.

Chara’s left hand clasped around the gunman’s wrist, and his fingers spasmed and flew open, letting the gun drop to the concrete. The fireball in Chara’s palm sank through the man’s skin, into his body like a phantom, lighting every nerve from his shoulder down to the tips of his fingers on fire. The man screamed like he was being murdered.

He was.

Chara’s right fist hit him in the jaw. The saliva in his mouth boiled as the gunman collapsed in a crumpled heap on the concrete, his weathered black baseballcap flying off his head and sailing through the air. Chara dug their knee into the man’s stomach as if their kneecap were a stabbing instrument. Steam poured from the man’s mouth, choking him, as Chara raised their fist and brought it down again, again, again. The man’s lips split open, his nose broke and gushed blood like a geyser, teeth flew from his open mouth. The blood spattering Chara’s knuckles sizzled and smoked as their arm moved up and down, up and down, pumping with the rhythm and mechanical precision of an industrial piston.

In this instant, with their higher functions shut down and their body operating purely on a murderous, vengeful sense of overwhelming rage, Chara was a mix of robotic perfection and animal brutality.

The gunman tried to crawl away, still wracked with pain, his fingers still scrabbling fruitlessly for the gun. Chara wouldn’t let him get away. They raised their hand once more in the air, opening it and clasping their fingers around a wispy, ghostlike knife conjured by the same flames that had wreathed their fists. The knife gleamed silvery in the sunlight for an instant before Chara brought it down in a tight and fatal arc, and as the blade’s angle changed, it disappeared from sight.

The phantom blade cut into the gunman’s chest, and a well of blood immediately darkened their threadbare, navy-blue shirt, and Chara wrenched the knife up, cutting into his neck, severing his jugular with a water cannon spray of blood, further up the face, bisecting the cheek, popping the eye—a brown eye, a deep brown eye, almost as though the man had stolen the eye he’d blown out of Frisk’s head for himself.

Chara rose up and stood over their prey, their white blouse and slacks stained with streaks and splashes of red, their violet velvet blazer streaked through with black, bloodstains blackening the hem of their cape. Their hands fell to their sides as the gunman, miraculously still alive, started crawling away, his wound still hemorrhaging blood with each pump of his heart. He took one look back at Chara with his single remaining eye, tears streaming down one cheek and blood streaming down the other, moaning and gibbering wordlessly.

Chara couldn’t see the look in their own eyes, and they never would. But the gunman could. And what he saw in those mad red eyes was frightening enough to make the man scream one last time, cowering on the cracked and weathered concrete of the sidewalk. His scream died down, overtaken by a dwindling gurgle as blood flooded his lungs and pooled on the sidewalk.

Chara realized that everyone else was screaming too. All traffic on the road had screeched to a halt. They regained their senses, snapping back to reality. The torn-off page from a ragged newspaper fluttered across the sidewalk.

_Frisk._

They took off, fought past the crowd that had piled up around the body—the crowd parted easily for Chara—and saw the body.

“Your Highness, please, I tried to stop, but—” the squid-faced monster who’d hit the body with his car blubbered.

Chara waved him away. “Get out.”

The impact had broken and twisted each of Frisk’s limbs, and they’d fallen onto their side. It was clear from the gunshot wound that Chara’s dearest friend had been dead before the car had slammed into their body. The entire left side of their face was gone, hidden by a mass of sticky blood and chips of bone.

Chara fell to their knees before the body, turned it over onto its back—turned _Frisk_ over on _their_ back—and gently turned their head so that only the unmarred side of their face was visible. Their olive skin was still warm and soft, their mouth still open in what could have been dull surprise, their single remaining dark eye staring blankly into the far distance. To Chara’s surprise, there was still a light in that eye, a spark that nearly made it seem as though they were still alive and alert—but no. It was nothing but a mirage. Light still bounced off the pupil just as it would off a living eye.

 _Any second now. Any second now, it’s going to be November 17 again,_ Chara told themselves. _Or further back. Frisk is going to wake up in a pile of leaves and I’ll be in their head with them. We’ll know the future and we’ll know exactly what to do and everything will be happy forever…_

And yet time moved forward—slowed to a crawl, an interminable crawl, but forward nevertheless.

Chara cradled Frisk’s body andlifted up their head, fingers resting on the sticky mass of blood and matted hair plastered around the bullet wound, although they couldn’t bear to look Frisk in the eye. _This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be happening. Not now. Not like this. Not like this. Not like—_

They held the body closer, gently rocking it, pressing it to their bloodstained chest, cherishing what little warmth it had left. _“I’m sorry,”_ they told Frisk, their voice choked by sobs as tears baptized their cheeks, more tears than they’d ever cried at once before, burning their eyes and blurring their sight. _“I’m sorry. Wake up, please. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry…”_

Their pleas fell on deaf ears.

They held the body for what seemed like an eternity, as if the death of their last remaining family member had frozen time itself, until strong, scaly arms dragged Chara away. Undyne’s rough yet concerned voice pierced their ears. _“_ _Chara, we have to go, it’s not_ safe _out here,_ _he wasn’t the only one_ _who got away_ _—”_

“ _No, no!”_ They scrabbled for the body, dug their fingernails into Undyne’s scales, kicked at her like a child throwing a tantrum. _“Don’t take them away_ _from me_ _! Don’t—”_

Undyne swept Chara off their feet, cradling them in her arms. Chara clutched at her back and cried into her shoulder as the gills lining her neck brushed against their cheek. Those cries transformed as raw emotion continued to push its way through Chara’s body into fits of sharp, wheezing, maniacal laughter.

They couldn’t stop laughing.

_They couldn’t stop laughing._

Their best friend was lying in a pool of their own insides on the street and _they couldn’t stop laughing._

The news would not show Chara holding the body of their last remaining family member and howling in anguish at the heavens. Instead, the image shown around the world that day was of the Sovereign King of All Monsters, Chara the Noble, Beautiful, and Benign, curled up like a mewling infant in the arms of their bodyguard, half-crying, half-laughing like a rabid hyena at the death of their only confidant and only remaining family.

It was the beginning of the end.


	30. Then Came the Last Days of May, Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Chara's descent continues unabated. Two chapters today because I don't want to draw this out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Content warning: This chapter contains references to self-harm and suicide. Just wanna put that out there.

The worst days were not the days you lost someone. Chara had already learned that lesson well after watching Toriel and Asgore waste away. The worst days were all the days that followed—the days those people you loved _stayed_ dead, the days you spent feeling their absence in the very air itself, the times you’d catch yourself thinking out of habit of something they’d love to hear about only to remember that you could never tell them about it now. The worst days were the days where all the words you’d longed to say to them but never had would percolate in your mind without relief. The worst days were the ones you ended gazing at their empty bed and wondering in spite of yourself when they would come home to fill it.

Be as that may, Chara didn’t feel sad after Frisk’s assassination. They didn’t feel angry or happy, either. In fact, they didn’t feel much of anything.

The castle became a prison. The daily duties of the king became a form of solitary confinement. In those cold and empty halls the softest cushions provided no comfort. There was nothing there but thin air and painful memories.

The great glass window in the throne room had shattered. It was amazing how quickly one could fall back into their bad habits. Chara hadn’t meant to do it. Just as they hadn’t meant to cut themselves on the jagged edges of the window. But once they’d bloodied their knuckles and lacerated their hand, they hadn’t been able to resist the urge to roll up their sleeve to their shoulder, pick up a wickedly-shaped blade of glass, and cut into their bicep, curving all the way around its circumference as if they were branding themselves as blood oozed down their forearm in thick, slow-dripping rivulets. It stung. Their nerves screamed, although Chara didn’t _._ But at least Chara was _feeling_ something.

The Royal Guard had been on the scene in a flash, alerted by the breaking of the window, the rain of glass on the courtyard below. Undyne bandaged Chara’s wound. Chara told her it had been an assassin. She knew from the first word that Chara was lying—it was painfully obvious to even the most simple-minded how self-inflicted the injury was—but said nothing to contradict them in front of their subjects.

Chara wouldn’t spend another night in the castle after that.

–

Undyne’s home was by far a much more inviting place. It was warm and cozy, not drafty and barren, and Chara felt safer staying there than they had in a long time, even if the knowledge of the future and the suffering yet to come still weighed heavily on their mind.

Undyne was burning a pot of pasta when Chara stepped in to microwave a bowl of instant yakisoba. The brigadier knew, theoretically at least, how to prepare food that was fit for human consumption, but since she never had to entertain humans, she never did. Chara liked their pasta _al dente._ Undyne, on the other fin, preferred her carbonara practically carbonized.

“ _In a rare speech this morning Chancellor Serif assured subjects of Mount Ebott this morning to remain calm, insisting that any saber-rattling over the kingdom’s sovereignty was an empty threat. As long as Mount Ebott remains in sole possession of the World Engine, the kingdom is insured against…”_

Undyne paused the news with a snap of her fingers as she noticed Chara approach. Of course. It was to spare their feelings. No matter how catatonic they seemed, current events still upset them, and Undyne had picked up on that rather quickly.

“Hey, Chara. Doctor Gaster was hoping to speak to you this morning.”

“He can keep hoping.” Chara’s voice was hoarse. As long as they were shut up in here like an invalid, they had little use of their voice, and so when they did have an opportunity to speak it would often come out as an embarrassing squeak.

“For now, you mean. Right?”

“Yes. Of course. For now.” They filled the bowl with water, dumped in the ingredients packet, and slid the whole package into the microwave.

Undyne took notice of Chara’s choice of meal. “Comfort food, huh.”

Chara nodded.

“You can’t eat microwave noodles three times a day, Your Highness.”

“I can if I want. I’m the king.” Chara watched the cardboard cup spin in the microwave. “I can eat whatever I want.”

Undyne rolled her eye. “All right, then. I’m not your mom.” She dumped an entire bulb of garlic, unpeeled, into the bubbling sauce.

The microwave dinged. Chara took the piping-hot cardboard bowl out, grabbing it carefully by its edges, and let it sit for half a minute while steam billowed up from the broth. They picked out a fork, stuck it into the noodles like they’d stuck a knife into that human, mixed the flavor packet into the broth, and cradled the bowl in their hands. It was so warm, it was almost like they were hugging somebody. _That_ was the true appeal of instant noodles.

“I’ll be eating in my room,” they told Undyne.

“’Kay.” Undyne kept vigorously stirring her already-ruined bolognese as she spared a glance back at them. “When Alphys comes back from the lab we’ll put on _Kiki’s Delivery Serv_ —”

She glanced at Chara again, this time with a frown, and setting her cooking aside, plucked the fork out of Chara’s bowl and exchanged the silverware for plasticware. Then she knelt at Chara’s feet and began to pat them down from the ankles up. As Undyne worked her way all the way up to their torso and finished under their armpits, Chara felt nothing but a hollow sense of shame.

“Sorry,” Undyne said, revisiting her cooking. The ritual embarrassed her as much as it did Chara.

“Wait,” Chara called out.

Undyne turned back, brushing a lock of scarlet hair out of her eye. Chara was shocked she still kept up with her eyeliner and crimson eyeshadow given the circumstances.

“Come closer.”

She came closer.

“Closer.”

She came closer.

“I want you to do something for me.”

“Um… okay?” Undyne glanced around the room, picking up on something in Chara’s voice that set her ill at ease as she crouched slightly, bringing her down to eye level, and put a sympathetic scaly hand on Chara’s shoulder. “You alright, Sovereign? Anything I can help you out with?”

“Kiss me.”

Undyne’s brow furrowed. “Wh— _what?”_

“Like you kiss Alphys. Kiss me like that,” Chara repeated.

Undyne removed her hand from Chara’s shoulder. She let out a nervous laugh, like she didn’t think her king was serious, but also as if she thought they’d forgotten how to tell a joke. “You’re asking a little too much of me, don’t you think, Your Highness-ness?” she asked, trying to diffuse the tension that had suddenly filled the room.

“I don’t think so at all.” Chara tried to form their mouth into a wry smile, but wasn’t sure they remembered how to do it. “You’d take a bullet for me.” They knew this from personal experience, although Undyne didn’t know it yet. “Is it so hard to give a kiss?” they asked, crossing their arms.

“Um… kinda?”

Chara sighed and stepped away, pivoting on their heel. “I don’t know what I expected from you,” they snarled, derision dripping from their lips as they cast a forlorn glance over their shoulder.

Undyne grabbed them by the wrist. “Chara. I know it’s hard, I know it feels like the world’s falling apart, but you’ve got to get past this and get your head back in the damn game. We’re _all_ suffering here. We need the _old_ Chara back!” she barked. “The Chara who tore up the Pipeline Treaty, the Chara who foiled the Business Plot! You’re our _sovereign,_ you have _responsibilities—_ ”

“Then _help_ me, Undyne!”

Chara couldn’t remember who’d struck the first blow, but their fingers were digging into Undyne’s shoulders and blood was streaming down from their forehead across their face as their head butted against their second-in-command’s. The steaming bowl of noodles had fallen to the floor.

“Kiss me or kill me, Undyne, but put me out of my misery! I order you! I _order_ you! As your _sovereign,_ as your _master,_ I _demand_ you—”

Within seconds Undyne had Chara pinned to the floor with her foot against their back.

“Please, Undyne.” Chara choked air into their lungs as they lay on the cold tile floor. “I can’t be the hero anymore.” They’d _never_ been a hero, not like Undyne, as much as they’d let the spotlight shine on them over their career. “Help me or take my place, save me or _end_ me—but free me from this pain.”

Undyne released her foot and let Chara breathe again, and then she knelt down and took them by the arm. “On your feet, soldier. Get up.”

–

Finally, on the day of the funeral, it started to rain. Chara, despite being well into their late 20s and ostensibly above such childish displays, refused to hold an umbrella during the proceedings.

It wasn’t right for Frisk to have a human funeral, no matter what their species was. Human funerals were such gloomy affairs. Now, monster funerals, where the deceased’s loved ones spread their dust over their most treasured belongings and celebrated their happy memories of the dearly departed—that was the kind of funeral Chara’s adopted sibling deserved. But in their gloomy malaise, Chara had neglected to put their foot down about any details. So here they were, at a funeral nobody wanted.

Undyne put her scaly hand on Chara’s shoulder and patted their rain-slicked shoulder. She was wearing a black suit she hadn’t worn since Toriel and Asgore had passed away, nearly ten years ago, and she, too, had no umbrella. Water didn’t bother her. “Hey, buddy. Didn’t think you’d show up. How’re you holding up?”

Chara smiled. “Oh, I’m fine. Thank you for your help, Brigadier.” They looked around, but saw no sign of Undyne’s wife. “Where’s Alphys?”

Undyne sighed. “Couldn’t make it. Anxiety. Didn’t wanna drag her out of bed.” She screwed her eye shut, fighting past a lump in her throat. “Y’know, I can’t blame her. Never thought things could get so bad, so fast…”

“I’m sorry.” The words came out perfunctory, a politician’s empty words, even though Chara had meant them from the bottom of their heart.

“It was my fault,” Undyne answered.

 _You have no idea,_ Chara thought. _It’s because of me. I pushed Frisk past the breaking point. I broke their spirit. I worked them like a dog until they were so whipped and worn-out that they chose death when they could have easily chosen to reset again. I_ murdered _them._

Chara shook their head. “You did your best, Brig. Don’t beat yourself up.” Their side ached and smarted, bruised beneath their cloak; they’d let Undyne land more than a few hits at the gym the other day. It had been their form of penance. Chara hadn’t told her how much it had hurt, or how much it _still_ hurt.

Undyne twiddled with the collar of Chara’s cloak. “Lookin’ pretty chipper, all things considered, kid.”

Twenty-nine years old, and Chara still couldn’t avoid getting called “kid.” The curse of having a babyface. Today they felt more like a child than they had as an _actual_ child.

Was that all they’d ever been all these years? Just a little child desperately trying to fit into an adult pair of shoes? Was _that_ why everything hurt so much now?

“Well, Brig… I’m the hero around here, am I not?” Chara smirked—a forced smile to hide their anguish. _“‘All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players; they have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.’”_

Chara eyed the coffin, its lid closed—it would have been hard to give an open-casket funeral to somebody missing half their face, after all. _Last scene of all, t_ _hat ends this strange eventful history,_ _i_ _s second childishness and mere oblivion,_ _s_ _ans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything._

“Gotta look brave for the cameras, huh? Maybe you could smile a bit less, kiddo. Makes you look like a sociopath.” Undyne sighed and straightened up, checking her phone. “I can’t stay here—doesn’t feel right leaving Alphys alone for so long, I mean, she’s really a mess. Wanna come along?”

Chara looked around the cemetery and spied, standing in the crowd, someone who shouldn’t have been there. “No, Undyne, I’m… fine.”

Frisk Dreemurr’s funeral was well-attended, of course. They were, after all, a hero—perhaps the greatest hero the kingdom had ever known. And an international figure to boot. Their accomplishments could fill a list a mile long—they were, despite their tiny size and tiny voice, a titan among humans and monsters alike. Heads of state and diplomats the world over stood at the grave.

Chara resented their presence. Those people wept now. They cared now. But in a few short months—when history repeated itself, as Chara knew it would, because they had lived it so many times—they would cluck their tongues and shake their heads and wag their fingers but never, never lift a finger to help. Chara saw all their faces as sun-bleached skulls.

Even President Edison Enright was there. Chara had had half a mind to disinvite him. After all, the killer had been one of the foiled bombers who’d escaped Royal Guard custody—a part of the extremist terrorist cell loyal to the Enright regime. The White House and the CIA could disavow the link all it wanted, but nobody was fooled.

This was what humans did. They took, and took, and took, and when they were done taking everything they could from _you,_ they moved onto your _friends,_ your _family,_ and they took, and took, and _took._ They were devils given flesh, devils who sought only to loose Hell upon the Earth.

“Come on,” Undyne cajoled Chara. “Anyone with a heart would understand if you can’t stay here the whole time. We’ll watch another dumb movie and try to laugh over it. It’s what Frisk would _want_ us to do, isn’t it? How about—”

Chara shrugged Undyne off. “I said I’m _fine,_ Undyne.”

Undyne shook her head. “Well, stop by when you’ve had enough, okay?” she asked him before she walked away. “Things are grim out there. Gotta take care of each other.”

Chara left her behind and walked over to the crowd of attending humans, over to the President of the United States. Chara could almost _smell_ dust coating his body, smell the acrid smoke in the air, see the blazing fires, hear the roar of guns. It took all their willpower to stop from vomiting as they came closer.

Enright noticed them. “Oh. King Chara, Your Highness.” He offered Chara a thick, rough hand. “My administration would like to offer our deepest condolences.”

Chara took his hand. They knew they could kill Enright right there, burning out his heart in an instant, just by touching them, and the thought that such a thing was in their grasp brought a smile again to their face. But in full view of so many people, with the funeral streaming live to the world, they would be all but committing suicide. So instead, they squeezed Enright’s hand tightly enough to make the murderer grit his teeth.

Enright pulled his whitened hand back, wincing as he massaged feeling back into it. “Helluva grip. There, there, sonny. It’s always hard to lose a loved one.” He let out a sympathetic smile from under a groomed, silvered beard. It was a smile Chara found very difficult to take seriously when they knew full well that it was only a matter of time before the commander-in-chief gave the orders to scour the mountain. “Be thankful you haven’t lost more. When you get to be as old as me, you even start to get _used_ to it, I’m afraid.”

Enraged by the mocking words and struggling to maintain their composure, Chara struggled to keep their face a blank, emotionless mask. A hard lump caught in their throat, but they forced it down, a vulnerable shudder prickling the hair on the back of their neck. Fire flitted past their eyes, fire that despite its intensity could not dry their tears.

 _I promise you, Edison, that I am going to take more from you,_ Chara thought, _than you could ever_ dream _of taking from me._

Clearing the visions of perdition from their mind,Chara wiped sodden hair from their forehead. “We’re not too different, then,” they said with a forced smile. “Maybe we can get together for tea sometime.”

Edison was taken aback by Chara’s oddly-chipper demeanor. “Er, well, if you’re open to diplomacy.”

 _It sure won’t be_ diplomatic _of you to drop napalm on_ my _kingdom, will it?_ Chara thought. “Why don’t I name the time and place?” They took Enright by the hand—it would be so easy to kill him right here and now and sate the bloodlust coursing through their mind!—and they pulled him aside and whispered in his ear: _“I'll never pause again, never stand still, till either death hath closed these eyes of mine or fortune given me measure of revenge.”_

Chara left the cemetery, rain still pelting their face and mingling with the tears they’d been holding back for hours, saltwater and freshwater streaming down their face and following the contours of their chin and neck.

They were the first tears they had shed in a week… and the last tears they would shed in this world.

A crooked man stood just outside the cemetery as Chara left it behind. A man in a black cloak, tall enough to rival the late Queen Toriel, thin as a rail with a head like a cracked egg.

[Chara Dreemurr,] Doctor Gaster signed. [I was hoping I could have a word with you.]

“I hardly think now is the time.”

[You’ve been quite busy during these time loops.]

Chara froze. “You… you _knew?”_

[I], Gaster replied, his broken mouth cracking into a smile, [have been busy as well.]

–

Chara Dreemurr, Sovereign of Mount Ebott, stood in front of their throne with a microphone affixed to their throat, prepared to give their first public speech since Frisk’s death. They weren’t sure if they could go through with it.

They took a deep breath as they looked each member of of their inner circle, as well as the gathered members of Parliament, dead in the eyes. Cameras gazed at them from all corners of the throne room. Everybody in attendance waited with bated breath, wondering what Chara would say.

Except for Gaster.

“My Royal Subjects,” Chara began, just as they had started every other speech, “we have mourned the loss of our kingdom’s greatest hero long enough. Now is the time for action—action, and _justice._ The man who assassinated my dear sibling, our own eternal optimist, Frisk Dreemurr, was but one link in a chain that has bound our kingdom since the time before the Great War: a chain forged by humanity, out of its hatred, envy, and avarice.”

No reaction from the crowd.

“Frisk was an optimist. They truly believed, up to the end, that it _was_ possible for humans and monsters to live in peace, as equals—with an unshaken conviction. The Pipeline Treaty did not convince them otherwise. The Business Plot did not convince them otherwise. Every other attempt made by humans—both hostile nation-states and profit-obsessed corporations alike—to undermine our sovereignty, buy our homes out from under us, sell us into servitude, or drive us into extinction—” Chara paused and fought their way around the word. “Attempts undermined solely by the bravery, cunning, and ruthlessness of our own Royal Guard…” Chara saw Undyne nod in the audience. “Even those did not break their spirit. Frisk Dreemurr’s determination never gave out. And so, when the human race could not break their spirit, it decided instead to break their body.”

Chara’s mouth grew dry, and they paused as they collected themselves. “Frisk was an optimist in a world which demands a cynical eye. I did my best to follow in their beliefs—to no avail. As much as it pains me to admit it, their ideology was simply untenable. Humankind has always represented a grave existential threat—not only to our people, but to the very Earth itself and its rich tapestry of life. How soon does humanity forget! Humanity forgets that when _they_ polluted the air, _we_ scrubbed it clean. When _they_ poisoned their oceans and lakes, _we_ purified them! When _they_ melted the polar ice caps, _we_ refroze them—with the power of our Royal Scientists’ crowing achievement, the World Engine!”

The audience politely clapped for Alphys and Gaster, the former unnerved by the positive attention, the latter stoic in the face of his well-earned accolades. Chara waited for them to finish.

“Just as humanity resented our magic in ancient times, and imprisoned us for the sin of provoking their jealousy, today humanity resents us for saving their planet— _our_ planet—and expecting to be treated with just the barest modicum of respect and dignity in return!”

Chara knew the depths that resentment could drive humanity to better than even the oldest monsters in the throne room. They had seen firsthand their own world snuffed out ten times over—something no monster, living or dead, had ever been forced to witness. No one could understand better than them the enemy the Kingdom of Mount Ebott now faced.

“Humans have made it clear. They cannot share this world with us. Their hatefulness and intolerance is simply too deeply-ingrained into their psychological makeup. How much longer will we wait until that becomes plainly clear to even our most wide-eyed Pollyanas? How many skirmishes will we fight? How many more attempts to imprison, enslave, and murder us will we endure? How many more times will capitalists try to buy our land out from under our feet? How many more times will nations attempt to intimidate us into relinquishing our sovereignty? I say we will wait no longer, fight no longer, and endure no more. We need an impermeable shield to protect us from humanity.”

Chara’s hand, raised in front of them, curled into a fist. “First—as Sovereign, I order Mount Ebott’s borders to be closed indefinitely, starting tomorrow evening. Any human remaining within our borders after the borders close, as well as any to enter following their closure, will be prosecuted as an enemy of the state.”

Some in the audience reacted with barely-disguised gasps, others nodded approvingly. Chara’s eyes met Undyne’s. She showed no reaction.

“But _that_ is not how I will protect us from our vicious neighbors. Make no mistake—I will not be the king who hides our people behind yet another barrier!”

The audience clapped.

“No longer will we turn the other cheek when a hostile foreign government bloodies our nose.”

There was some nervous laughter from the crowd.

“We have stood by and endured in the past. But the monster race,” Chara said, “is _not_ defenseless, nor are we incapable of retaliating against future strikes against our liberty. Tonight I issue an ultimatum, not only to my counterpart in Washington, D.C., but to all leaders and all governments around the world. Doctor Gaster, if you will.”

The skeletal scientist nodded and produced a small control panel from within his black suit.

“I, Chara Dreemurr, am about to introduce to the world the apotheosis of monster might. The World Engine, having proven insufficient leverage, is no longer our sole means of defending our sovereignty. However…”

Chara watched Gaster press the button on his panel and slip the device back into his suit pocket. Gaster nodded.

Seconds later, the ground began to shake, the entire castle trembling like a leaf in the wind. The audience milled about, concerned murmurs overlapping each other and adding to a hushed, frantic susurrus.

Chara paused and let them recover as the tremors subsided, carefully balancing themselves to remain upright even as the floor beneath them trembled.

“Do not be concerned. The United States has an orbital weapons platform in a stable geosynchronous orbit over Washington, D.C., protecting the country from intercontinental ballistic missiles no matter their vector of attack.” Chara gently coughed into their elbow. “Excuse me. I meant, _had.”_

Chara’s audience was no less confused.

“The World Engine only used a small fraction of the Core’s full energy-generating potential. The rest we now have devoted to a self-defense system the likes of which none have ever seen. We call it… the Arsenal of Heaven.”

From the sidelines, Gaster beamed.

“Of course, bold claims require bold proof. To those of you watching at home, or in public, I advise you to look up at the sky. Barring inconvenient cloud coverage, the explosion should be easily visible across the entire United States.”

Every member of the audience pulled out their phones, the soft glows of their screens filling the throne room with a diffuse blue glow. Gasps of horror and of awe filled the room as news of the new star in the sky hurried its way through the internet.

Chara was glad it had worked. They could have had quite a lot of egg on their face had Gaster’s work been even just a little off.

“The Arsenal of Heaven can do the same to any target, terrestrial or extraterrestrial. The weapons platform has been disintegrated completely, you will find, leaving no trace of debris. If the human race continues to provoke us, it might not be so lucky next time. Should we be provoked into defending ourselves yet again, our next target will leave enough debris in low earth orbit to massively accelerate Kessler syndrome, destroying nearly every satellite, commercial or government, in orbit around the Earth.”

“Do not misinterpret this,” Chara chided both the audience standing before them and all those watching around the world. “This is not an attack on the rest of the world’s sovereignty, but rather a defense against its domination.” They flung out their arms, as if to embrace the crowd. “There will be no more meddling,” they announced. “No more coup attempts, no more stabs at economic sabotage, no more terrorism, no more assassinations! Not while the Arsenal of Heaven, our own Sword of Damocles, hangs over the Earth!”

With their arms outstretched like Christ on the cross Chara drove their speech to its resounding conclusion. “We have a message for humanity! _Hear us:_ We will go to any lengths to defend our home, our liberty, and our rights. We will see to it that justice is done, whether or not the heavens should fall. I present to you now, in memory of Frisk Dreemurr the Determined—peace everlasting!”

The applause was thunderous; Chara grinned as they scanned the room and saw the hope reflected in so many peoples’ eyes. They had done it. They had stood back up and become the symbol their kingdom needed.

 _I’ve done it, Frisk,_ they thought, savoring that shining moment when Sovereign Chara Dreemurr stood tall on top of the world. _I’ve indulged_ both _of our dreams. I’ve brought both of our wildest fantasies to life. Of peace… and of_ revenge. _At long last,_ we’re _the strong ones now. At last humanity will cower before our might. And we will all have peace._

Chara bowed politely at the applause and took their leave of the throne room. On their way out, they looked over their audience one last time and saw that at one point or another, Undyne had left the room.

–

Armageddon only took a few weeks.

There was fire on the mountain. Burning, creeping up the forested slopes, gobbling all it came across; fire fed by shells filled with phosphorous and napalm that had fallen days, weeks ago, but whose thirst had yet to be quenched.

One soul still lived in this inferno, or rather, _under_ it, in ancient sealed-off tunnels that had once housed a civilization-in-exile for long, stretched-out generations. They’d fled deeper, deeper, deeper still, into the bowels of the mountain where magma cast an orange glow across the stone—pinned between two hells, a purgatory without the promise of heaven.

They had seen the first bombs fall. They had seen the arc of light split the sky in two. They had seen a thousand new stars bloom in the sky and drift across the horizon.

Chara did not know what was happening outside their shelter, but they liked to think that perhaps now the Earth belonged to the animals as it once had.

At the end of all things, Chara was home. Not just home, but _Home._ Home was under the mountain. Home was where they’d spent afternoons with their brother, where their mother and father had cleaned their scrapes and bruises, in that crumbling ancient castle that no longer housed so much as a rat.

It wasn’t much of a home now, but this was still the bed they had spent nights in, the bed they had slept in when they wanted to hide from the world, the bed they had lay in when they were dying and Asriel had stayed by their side.

They were cocooned in the blankets again the way they’d spent their first few months underground, when they’d just been a scared, scarred, bruised little child who hadn’t yet realized that _these_ monsters were not going to hurt them.

And now all those monsters were gone.

“Undyne?”

Chara’s voice, quiet, cracked, and broken, had no room to echo in that small and creaky room.

“Undyne, are you still out there?”

 _Find a spot to hide. I’ll come get you when it’s over. Whatever it takes, Your Highness,_ one _of us has to survive._

She’d taken a bullet for Chara. Again. But _this_ time, Chara hadn’t seen her die, hadn’t felt her body melt away in their arms, hadn’t heard her last gasp of breath before the end. She’d still been standing there radiant and valiant, her body crackling with electricity and her eye shining black, armies falling at her feet like the legions of Hell against an archangel on Judgment Day, as the door slammed shut between her and Chara and the elevator plunged Chara deep into the depths of the mountain.

Chara had wanted to scream and cry and pound their fists on the door as the creaky old elevator shivered its way down the shaft. They had wanted to sob against the battered metal as the elevator shuddered to a stop. They had wanted to beg Heaven for time to run backwards for just a few more minutes.

They had done none of those things.

And now they were _here_ as days turned to weeks in their exile, still numb in their heart, but now it was only just beginning to ache.

“I miss you, Undyne.”

She wasn’t there to answer.

Chara played with the locket hanging for their neck, as they always did when they were lonely, and when they pulled it open they caressed the old, worn, smudged stick-figure drawing of their long lost brother.

Asriel. Their baby brother. That stupid crybaby.

_Toriel called out to the children to her as she took a seat in her cozy armchair. She held a silk pouch in her lap. “Come here, children—Chara, don't touch those knitting needles—I have something for both of you.”_

_Chara_ _sheepishly drew their hand back from Toriel's knitting needles,_ _giving_ _Toriel their best and most disarming “who, me?” smile._

 _Chara_ _sat down on the floor_ _next to Asriel_ _, feeling the warmth from the fireplace suffusing the_ _ir_ _body. It looked like Toriel had something to give to the two of them. But what was the occasion? It wasn't either of their birthdays._

_“Chara, darling,” Toriel asked, “do you know how long it has been since you arrived here?”_

_She_ _smiled,_ _not even giving Chara the time to respond as she answered for them_ _. “Exactly one year ago today.”_

_A year ago today? Had it been so long already?_

_She loosened the drawstrings on the silk bag and reached into it, pulling out two shining trinkets, rubies cut in the shape of hearts set into gold pendants. “I had these made for the both of you,” she said, handing one to Chara and then the other to Asriel. “To mark the special day when our family gained one more member.”_

_Chara’s first thought was that they were disappointed it wasn’t chocolate. But chocolate was a rarity down here, available only for birthdays and Christmas. They opened up the locket and saw a tiny picture of Asriel, and likewise, their brother’s eyes glittered as he popped open his locket and saw a matching picture of Chara._

_Those original photos had long ago been lost, and one of the two lockets as well. But Chara still held on_ _to theirs. A constant companion, like they’d hoped Asriel could always be for them._

A constant thought ran in their head like a refrain.

_I need you._

That night—or perhaps it was morning, or maybe early afternoon—they slept in their own coffin, knowing no future awaited them but death.

 _There is a better world out there,_ something whispered in their head. A familiar voice.

_No. Not anymore. It’s burned._

_No, not_ that _one. The_ other _world. You remember, don’t you? Visiting it once upon a dream._

Asriel. He was still alive out there, in a different time, on a different Earth. Chara had seen him once long, long ago. _Dare I dream of it again?_

In their mind’s eye Chara thought they could see a white hand reaching out for them. They reached out in turn—but instead of finding soft fur, their fingers only brushed against the smooth, lacquered wooden surface of the coffin.

_I want to see you again._

_Sleep now,_ the voice answered, their brother’s voice as they’d last heard it, squeaky and high-pitched, clear and pure as a bell. _Sleep now and I will let you dream of home._

“To sleep, perchance to dream…?” It would hardly be the first time they had died in their sleep. It would not even be their most painful death.

_Whether I die, or whether I wander to new worlds… I await that undiscovered country._

They folded their hands across their chest, mimicking the pharaohs of ancient Egypt, although they brought no lavish riches with them. Clasping the jeweled golden locket that hung from a chain around their neck, they let their eyelids grow heavy—although in the darkness it made no difference whether their eyes were open or closed.

 _If I see you again, Asriel,_ Chara promised as sleep took them, _I will greet you with nothing but the brightest smile._

_And if your kingdom is in trouble, too… I will do everything I can do save it._

_For you, Asriel, I will be the Chara I needed to be in_ this _world._

_For you, for your kingdom, for our people, I’ll be the hero._

_I'll make the world safe for monsters like us._

–

A world away, in the depths of Dracula’s castle, Chara conjured a knife in their hand and left it just visible enough so that Senator Enright could see it. They were deathly silent as they gazed upon their enemy.

Enright had had much more gray in his hair in Chara’s timeline—a gift of the presidency. Twelve years of power, half of them absolute, wreaked havoc on a hairline. Enright should have counted his blessings his 2024 campaign had been a bust in this timeline.

Of course, because he was still running for president _now,_ and because Chara alone knew what he was capable of, he still had to die.

Senator Enright scuttled backward, his glasses askew. “Wh—what do you want from me?” he whined.

Chara knelt down before the senator and pressed the tip of their knife into Enright’s adam’s apple, their eyes wide and wild, savoring every detail of Enright’s final moments.

“Please don’t kill me,” he begged, looking Chara right in the eyes. Pathetic and blubbering, just the way Chara liked their tyrants.

Chara put some pressure on the knife and watched a dot of blood well up on Enright’s throat. The will to make grandiose, self-important speeches had utterly vanished as cold fury drowned out the speech centers of their brain. But they still wanted it to be slow.

_Out, out, brief candle! Life's but a walking shadow…_

“I’ll do anything,” said the senator, blubbering, his face a mess of snot and tears. “I’ll give you anything.”

Chara remembered how to speak. A single word slipped from their lips. “Anything?”

Enright nodded, blinking through his cracked and askew glasses. “Anything in the world.”

_It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing._

“The world is not enough.” Chara's voice dropped to a low, quiet hiss. _“I want your life._ _”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _They’re OK the last days of May_   
>  _But I’ll be breathin’ dry air_   
>  _I'm leavin' soon_   
>  _The others are already there_
> 
>  
> 
> \-- Blue Oyster Cult, "Then Came the Last Days of May"


	31. Round Perdition’s Flames, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Asriel and Undyne square off against Chara.

As he ran through the anthill-like tunnels beneath Dracula’s castle, Asriel picked up the pace with every step he took, leaving the others struggling to keep up in his wake.

 _Chara,_ he thought as the rock and dirt beneath his feet shifted to sand and the cavern walls gave way to hallways of carved limestone bricks, _what are you doing?_

Undyne’s voice rang in his ears, joined by a high-pitched whine from the tinnitus in his left ear. _How can you trust them, Asriel?_

 _Chara,_ he thought, _what’s going through your head?_

Asriel’s thoughts came back to haunt him.

 _They still keep secrets from me… and there’s still a seed of doubt in my mind. A seed I can’t allow myself to water, a seed I can’t let take root—I_ have _to believe in Chara._

_Because if I don’t… if I waver for even a second…_

Asriel could not help now but waver.

Two skeletal warriors with glittering jewels set into their foreheads barred the gate leading to the coliseum, and crossed their poleaxes as Asriel approached. Asriel came to a halting stop as the stragglers caught up with him. “Let me through,” he told the guards. “I’m Chara’s brother.”

“You don’t look alike,” one of the skeletons said.

Willowrot pushed past him. “Hello, Maximus. You know that warrior who saved the miners’ union?” She gestured to Asriel as if presenting him as the prize on a game show. “This is he! And Sovereign Chara would be so, so, very, ever so pleased to meet him…”

Maximus glared at Asriel. Asriel responded by baring his teeth and growling.

The two skeletons pulled away and pushed the gate open. Asriel turned to the others behind his back. Soma was still catching his breath, leaning against the heavy Claimh Solais. “Undyne. I want you to go around to the other side of the arena while I talk to Chara. Save the senator.”

Undyne saluted. “Got it, boss!”

“Soma, bring Mina to the front gate. The vanguard will escort you.” Asriel turned back approached the gate. The light in the arena was bright, casting the wide open expanse in stark shadows. Behind him, Undyne pulled Soma to his feet and whisked him away. He took a deep breath and stepped into the arena.

And there he saw Chara, half-kneeling in front of a man, their ragged yet elegant black-and-white dress sweeping across the sand.

The man before them, lying in a crumpled heap on the ground, wept, whimpered, and groveled. Asriel caught the sinister glint of a knife in Chara’s hand, but saw no knife beneath the flash of light, merely an empty hand.

“Chara!” Asriel shouted.

And Chara turned their head, and Asriel saw their eyes, their terrible red eyes, and his blood ran cold.

He’d tried so hard not to see Zero in those eyes. But he couldn’t help it—not now.

That was the same person—the same heartless demon—who’d tortured him, who’d broken him again and again, who’d made him watch his family and his friends live in pain and fear, Zero the demon, Zero the destroyer, the abuser, the enslaver, the killer, Zero who’d torn Asriel’s life apart, Zero of the black blood and blacker heart—

_They lied to you, Asriel. How much of their sob story did you think was true? How long have they been playing you like a fool, Asriel? How many do they plan on taking from you this time?_

“Zer—Chara!” Asriel suppressed the tremor in his clenched fist as his claws pricked his skin. “I know what you’re trying to do here.”

Chara did not respond.

Asriel could remember Chara’s fury. Even when they were young, before Zero, when something set them off—if anybody dared remind Chara of their painful life before they’d fallen into Asriel’s family—they would often go into a near-catatonic state, staring forward with wild eyes, and although they could be quite the chatterbox normally, they would go utterly and completely _silent._

And there was that grin again, that sinister rictus that had followed him through childhood and adolescence, a grin so sinister Asriel could only associate it with Zero, the demon borne of Chara’s hate, a grin that let Asriel know he was about to be punished, that he—or someone he loved—was going to suffer.

Chara broke the silence. “If you had even the faintest idea…”

“I’ve heard enough from Soma.”

“Soma? Don’t tell me you take the word of that soul-stealing delinquent over your own kin!”

“You’re not my kin!” Asriel barked, vehemently and venomously. The words slipped from his mouth before he could even _think_ them, and as they echoed across the arena, Asriel realized, worst of all, that he _believed_ them.

Chara drew back, a small and vulnerable look on their face that quickly hardened.

Asriel was already running toward them. He already had a partisan in his hand, and tongues of fire curved around his arms as his feet pounded against the sandy ground. His partisan met the blade of a fiery sword so wispy and insubstantial it was nearly invisible; heat haze rippled around its length, blurring and distorting Chara’s face.

_Fire like mine._

The ghostly sword was surprisingly strong in Chara’s hands and trembling arms, and held fast. But Asriel, with his long polearm, had much greater leverage, and with the curved tines crossing the partisan’s blade he twisted Chara’s sword out of their grasp. Asriel’s next strike nearly took off their head.

As Chara retreated, Asriel slid across the ground, laying their hand on the sand; a forest of spears burst from the ground in front of him, whipping up sparks and misshapen, blackened globules of glass. Chara continued to stumble backward as the partisans kept sprouting from the sand like weeds and traveled in an undulating wave over the arena’s lake of sand, spears behind the crest blackening and burning out as fresh blades sawed through the ground.

Chara dove out of the way and the wave of spears kept going in a straight line, crashing into the far wall of the arena with a plume of fire and a gout of black smoke. While Chara distractedly glanced at the flames, awestruck, Asriel lifted the partisan in his hands above his head and behind his back and brought the blade against the ground with all his strength.

Where the blade hit the ground, a rolling globe of golden-yellow fire like a miniature sun sprang forth and tore across the arena, dragging a furrow in the sand, charring the sand black and casting up stalagmites of dirty, twisted glass to its sides. Chara barely avoided it, and the sun crashed into the walls and exploded with a deafening roar, a blinding flash of light, and a shower of stone and dust. Silver fire wreathed Chara’s arm, shielding them from the brunt of the damage, but their sleeve was still blackened and smoking where Asriel’s attack had grazed it.

Something invisible tore through Asriel’s shoulder, ripping the tattered remains of the button-down shirt he’d been wearing as a jacket and setting it alight. He pulled the jacket off and threw it to the sand where it smoldered, and as he did another invisible thing cut through his opposite arm and his thigh, and another attack whizzed over his head, severing the strap holding his eyepatch in place.

He saw something glitter as it flew low through the air away from where Chara stood, and leaped back as it struck the ground. When the plume of dust had settled, Asriel could see, half-buried, a short knife cast out of fire—fire just like the flames he called forth, only silver instead of gold, and wispy and insubstantial. If he tilted his head at even a slight angle, the knife vanished from view.

Something dragged itself down Asriel’s back, leaving a smarting wound. At first he’d thought a sharp piece of stone had fallen from the ceiling. Then he looked up and saw, shining in the air, a cluster of ghostly knives winking in and out of sight like an optical illusion.

Chara flung out their hand, clenched their fist, and the rain began.

Asriel leaped out of the way, throwing himself clear of the rain and high into the air with a percussive blast of fire from the soles of his feet. It was exhilarating, despite the grim circumstances—he hadn’t used that trick in well over a decade, and was overjoyed to know he could still pull it off.

He expected the knives to hit the ground as he sailed in a wide arc across the arena; instead, they all turned sharply just before impact, flying out in every direction but down before converging on Asriel’s position. The sky was filled with insubstantial motes of white lights like twinkling stars, all impossible to track with his eye alone.

He conjured a partisan before him, levitating it in front of him and spinning it like a propeller, and wreathed himself in flame as his feet once again touched the ground. The knives hit him from every direction, or at least those not turned away by his helicopter-rotor partisan, but he only felt their impacts dully through his improvised armor.

Asriel let the partisan fly at Chara, and it stuck in the ground before their feet, stopping them in their tracks before the fiery spear erupted in a blossom of fire. Chara dove out of the fireball, glistening silver flames coating their body like their own suit of armor. _“That could’ve killed me!”_ they shouted in an accusing voice.

 _If you were_ really _Chara, I’d care._

Chara flung out their hand, and Asriel felt the sting of a blade cut through his cheek; at the same time several more hit his chest with the force of a bullet at point-blank range. Asriel landed on his back, his ribs aching; four translucent knives stuck out from his armored vest, standing straight up and flickering like birthday candles made of glass.

“Leave me alone, Asriel,” Chara growled, gritting their teeth as they clutched their singed arm. “Please, for the love of god, stay down and let me do this!” They glanced at where Edison Enright was lying—where he _had_ been lying.

The senator now hung like a pile of clothes desperately in need of a dry cleaners’ over Undyne’s shoulder. She froze like a kid who’d just been caught stealing cookies from the jar as Chara spied her, then she bolted for the exit.

Chara ran after her, leaping over twisted pillars of glass and fulgurite sculptures, and Asriel followed, the distance rapidly closing between the three of them. “Chara!” he shouted. “You killed Morton Kaine, didn’t you? And who else?”

Asriel got within striking distance of Chara and reached out, grabbing a fistful of their sleeve; the fabric tore away in his hand. “Don’t you feel a shred of remorse?”

 _“Remorse?”_ Chara shouted back. “I would, had I done anything wrong!” Without missing a beat they whirled around, the ragged remains of their dress spinning with them, and executed a spinning kick. Their heel came merely an inch away from Asriel’s face in its arc. “All I do is for love of justice, Asriel!”

Chara immediately rejoined pursuit of Undyne and the senator.

Asriel thought he’d dodged Chara’s attack—until a gash opened up across his jaw from his chin down to his throat. Blood matted his fur. Chara had conjured a knife along the back of their heel, nearly impossible to see through the sand and dust and smoke in the air; if Chara had aimed just a little lower they’d have torn Asriel’s throat out and killed him instantly. Chara had… spared Asriel’s life? _Why?_

Chara grabbed Senator Enright by his limp arm and dragged him off Undyne’s shoulder. The senator flopped to the ground, kicking up a cloud of sand. Undyne whirled around, lightning spear in hand, and spear and sword met in a shower of sparks. Blades clashed again and again, but with Undyne’s mechanical hand still damaged and only semi-functional, Chara had a distinct advantage—and the skillfulness of their moves mirrored Undyne’s own. Asriel could see her losing ground, and quickly. She even had to resort to biting Chara’s forearm, the kind of dirty bar-brawl move that (despite Undyne’s love of wrestling) was far beneath her dignity.

Asriel rushed forth, and his blade clashed with Chara’s. Lightning spears struck at their left, flaming spears at their right, and they nimbly dodged both concurrent salvos. They flew back as if dragged by an unseen force.

Undyne quickly caught up to them despite the incredible speed at which they moved. Her fists moved with nearly-blinding speed, gauntleted with a sparkling aura of crackling electricity. Chara danced around her with the fluidity and grace of a figure skater, as if the sand beneath their feet were an ice rink.

No—As Asriel came closer, he could see that Chara’s delicate black shoes floated about an inch over the ground, a shimmering haze beneath them. They had replicated—and improved on—Asriel’s jetpack trick with only a glance!

Chara kicked at Undyne; she blocked with, thankfully, her metal forearm, for the knife blade affixed to their right foot cut deep into it and threw out a shower of sparks. Chara leaped back, spinning through the air as Undyne loosed a salvo of spears at them, and they flew, ungainly but steady.

The lances of lightning followed Chara. One hit them in the shoulder and erupted in a burst of blue-green light; the others soon followed. Chara tumbled to the ground, awash in a plume of sand.

Asriel hadn’t seen that level of fine control in a monster’s magical ability since… well, _himself._ But that just meant that two could play Chara’s game. He leaped up, igniting a fire under his feet that pushed him toward Chara with the speed and force of a rocket.

Asriel hit Chara with enough force to form a crater in the ground beneath them, pinning their torso to the rock with his knee. He brought up his partisan, aimed for Chara’s head—

And he saw in their eyes, for just a brief moment, _fear._

Asriel hesitated. And the voice in his head raged.

_What are you waiting for?_

_If it were you they wouldn’t hesitate!_

_Kill them before they kill you!_

The blade sank into the rock next to Chara’s head, singeing their hair. The air wavered around the spear’s shaft. Their foot planted itself firmly against Asriel’s chest, and a burst of flame lifted Asriel off his feet and threw him into the air.

He realized as he fell that Chara could easily have driven a knife into his chest, but had used a far less lethal attack instead—in thanks, perhaps, for sparing them? It still hurt like nothing else, though, and left a black scorch mark over his heart.

Asriel hit the ground as Chara climbed to their feet, and he immediately leaped up and went after them.

The voice in his head followed him. _They won’t keep going easy on you forever, Asriel,_ said Flowey. _Kill them while you have the chance. You’ve seen this evil before. And you can’t permit it to live._

Asriel’s fist grazed Chara’s forearm, and his arm brushed up against theirs. He dug deep within himself, calling upon a dark part of his soul he’d long ago buried.

When he’d been brought back from the dead—courtesy of one of Alphys’ experiments—and reconstituted into the form of one of Asgore’s beloved golden flowers, he’d had no soul. Unable to feel love, he’d grown into a creature motivated purely by sadism.

Because, of course, he’d been twelve when he’d died.

_And kids can be cruel._

He’d been a creature who lured in the innocent with a saccharine “Flowey the Flower” act and…

_Go ahead. Get back in touch with your inner child, Asriel._

Thorny green vines tore through Asriel’s flesh, bursting out of his forearm and writhing like an alien in a sci-fi horror movie, wrapping themselves around Chara’s arm and holding them down. With his free hand, Asriel landed blow after blow into their kidney.

Asriel had never gotten hit by a kidney punch himself before, but Undyne had taken great pains to him to describe what it felt like. “So you know never to let someone aim for that spot,” she’d told him.

If you got hit by a heavyweight (Undyne had sparred often with King Asgore, and Asriel had wondered if she’d learned this in a match with him) it felt like “explosive diarrhea, only instead of shooting out of your ass it’s shooting up into your guts.” If you got hit by a world-class fighter it felt like every drop of blood in your body had suddenly turned into battery acid (Asriel had no idea where she’d learned this).

Chara stumbled and staggered after each punch, forced to stay on their feet by the creeping vines holding their arm and torso in place. Their was face racked with agony, eyes rolling, teeth grinding, sweat pouring down their brow.

_This is fun, isn’t it? Let’s keep going—see how many punches it takes to get to the chewy center of a Chara!_

No. He’d done enough now. He had to stop this—he had to wrangle that evil creature inside himself, had to force it back. _No—_

Asriel held his hand back, although his arm was desperately trying to move against his wishes. Why had he given in? Why had he let his old self take the driver’s seat? His fist uncurled, claws glistening.

_If you’re going to be that way… why not finish the job and rip their guts right out already?_

As Asriel hesitated, Chara cut through the cluster of vines protruding from his arm and freed themselves. Their arm came away with the remaining white patches of their sleeve dyed scarlet with blood. They fell back, clutching at their side as they stumbled over to where Senator Enright still lay.

The severed vines shriveled up and fell from Asriel’s bloodied arm. He felt drained—but Flowey’s disarmingly saccharine voice had drawn back into the deepest recesses of his psyche. And now he took no pleasure in seeing the pain etched into every line of Chara’s weary face.

But he still had to stop them.

Now freed, Chara surveyed the arena, their eyes darting and lighting up when they spied their prey off in the distance. Before they could run off, Asriel conjured a bundle of spears floating at his side and attacked.

As Chara turned their attention to Asriel, guarding against a barrage of blades, Undyne grabbed them from behind, hooking her other arm around Chara’s knee, and lifted them over her shoulder in a leg-hook suplex. Lightning coursed across the sand from the soles of her boots, transforming a patch of sand several feet in every direction into a gnarled sheet of gritty, dirty glass, just as Chara’s back slammed against it.

Undyne picked herself up and brushed herself off as Chara lay spread-eagle on the ground.

Asriel fell to his knees as he felt a shadow draw away from his body. He hadn’t fought with this ferocity, this intensity, since he’d been a kid. He felt wiped out, exhausted from both the exertion of his muscles and his magic reserves, and from the mental impact of seeing Chara turn on him so suddenly. “I think… an apology is in order, Undyne.” She’d been right all along, and he had done nothing but berate her for it. He felt like an idiot.

“Y’know…” Undyne sighed. “I’m really not in the mood to tell you ‘I told you so.’ But… apology accepted.”

“Thank you, Captain.”

Asriel glanced over to the senator. “Enright! You all right?”

Senator Enright lay facedown against the sand, half-buried. He raised a trembling hand and extended his middle finger before his arm once again fell limp.

“You’re welcome!” Undyne blew a raspberry at him. _“Ingrate,”_ she muttered. “Asriel, is your neck…?”

The cut stung as Asriel brushed his fingers against it. He could hardly believe it. Just this once, he’d thought this Chara was different. That they’d _changed._ He’d stuck his neck out for them and nearly lost it. As the rage subsided, his throat hardened, his eye stung, and he almost felt close to tears. “I’m—f-fine.”

“I know.” Undyne patted him on the back as gently as she could manage. Her prosthetic arm whirred and sparked, its motors battered and gummed with sand. “I wanted to believe it too.” She stood up, walked over to Chara, who was still lying on their back, motionless. She conjured a long, jagged lightning spear and held it aloft, blade down.

“What are you doing?”

“Keeping them down.”

Asriel’s breath caught in his throat. “Wait. You can’t—”

As Undyne raised the spear, Chara’s leg shot up, burying itself in Undyne’s gut. She stumbled backward, blood streaming from her abdomen, and collapsed, clutching at her wound and gritting her snaggled, yellowed fangs.

“Undyne!” Asriel rolled her onto her back and assessed the wound. It was a shallow wound, and far from any major organs.

Chara rose to their feet. “She’ll live.”

“Live like hell!” Undyne growled, spitting through her fangs and tearing herself away from Asriel. She leaped to her feet, taking a boxer’s stance, but she struggled to stay upright with her injury. “I haven’t even begun to kick your ass!”

With Chara distracted, Asriel picked himself up and scurried toward the senator, stumbling across the soft, thick sand under his feet. But before he could get close, a knife bit into his calf, knocking him to the ground as pain split his leg.

Chara wiped a trickle of blood from their chin as they faced Undyne. “Stand down, Undyne… we have no business fighting among ourselves like this. You and I both—we’ve always been kindred spirits, heroes of justice!”

“Kindred? _Us?”_ Undyne threw a punch; it slid off Chara’s upraised forearm. It was almost unthinkable, looking at the two of them—Undyne’s sleek, musclebound physique versus Chara’s lithe toothpick limbs—that one could stand against the other.

“You taught me _more_ than how to fight.” Chara struggled against Undyne, silvery sparks against aquamarine as fire ground against lightning. “Undyne, I was once your sovereign, your pupil, and your friend—step aside and let me do this!”

“If I were friends with a murderous bastard like you… If _this_ is what you learned from me…” Undyne broke through the crossed blades, grabbed her prosthetic forearm by the wrist, tore it off her elbow, and smacked the metal appendage against Chara’s face.

Chara spun like a dancer and slipped to the ground, the ragged edges of the prosthetic leaving an ugly bruise and jagged gashes on their cheek. The arm went flying from Undyne’s grip.

 _“I must have been a real piece of shit in_ your _universe!”_ Undyne howled.

 _“UNDYNE!”_ Chara snarled, pulling themselves back up as blood oozed from their cheek. The forearm came flying back, spinning like a buzzsaw, and nearly took Chara’s head off. It clipped their ear, drawing a line of blood through the air. Before the disembodied forearm could come back for a second pass, Chara snatched it out of the air, struggling with it as Undyne tried to wrench it out of their grasp.

Undyne punched them in the nose with her remaining fist, and followed up with a sparking electric spear that, with an artful flourish, she drove into Chara’s side.

Chara gritted their teeth, locked their foot around Undyne’s ankle as they tore out the spear, and cut through Undyne’s ankle with a wicked stiletto slash. It had no effect on Undyne, and she immediately lashed out and drove a knee into Chara’s gut. Chara stumbled back, wheezing, still wrangling the busted metal forearm.

Undyne raised her leg, tears on her pants revealing glittering metal beneath.

 _“You…”_ Chara gasped. _“You lost your_ leg, _too?”_

As Chara continued to struggle with the forearm, a frayed carbon fiber cable spooled out of the gash drawn along its length, whipping through the air and leaving deep, red welts on Chara’s skin and tearing their clothes as it lashed at them and pinned their arms to their torso.

Undyne’s metal leg slammed into Chara’s side, right where they’d been wounded. A shower of spiny caltrops burst out, shredding what remained of Undyne’s pant leg as well as Chara’s ragged bodice as the spikes bit into their flesh.

Bound and injured, Chara rushed at Undyne, their forehead cracking against hers. Red blood poured down their brow and traced the contours of their nose; dark violet blood coated Undyne’s forehead as she staggered and fell to the ground.

As the disembodied metal forearm and its binding cable unspooled around Chara and freed them, Chara looked about ready to faint. It was amazing that they were still standing at all. Undyne, though, was out cold.

Asriel wrenched the knife from his leg, burning the exit wound shut to stem the bleeding. “How could you?” he cried out to Chara as he tried to stand up. “You said you’d been _friends!”_

Chara glowered at Asriel. “I’ve run away for too long.” They turned their back on him and began to walk toward Senator Enright, planting their foot on the small of his back. The senator stirred, but made no effort to free himself. “No matter who I have to fight or how hard I have to push myself, I’ll never give into that cowardice again. My heart burns true and pure, and my determination will carry me to the ends of the Earth!”

 _“What are you?”_ Asriel shouted at them.

Chara glanced back at him with hard red eyes.

“You… Chara was _human_ . I don’t know what you are or who you are… but whatever you are, you aren’t _that.”_

“You’re right.” Chara turned around, still keeping their heel on their prey’s back. “I’m not human. Not anymore. But believe me, Asriel, I never _once_ lied about who I was or where I came from. I never lied to _you.”_

–

Soma looked at the scene playing out across the arena, then back to Mina. Mina looked at him expectantly. He looked back to Senator Enright.

 _He’s just another stupid politician,_ Soma tried to reassure himself. _The world won’t miss him at all. No sense sticking my neck out for him._

“Come on,” he told the others. “Let’s get out of here.”

Then he heard Enright scream.

But that was none of Soma’s concern, was it? He had to look out for number one. Number one, of course, was Mina. And he didn’t owe anything to some old coot getting battered around by someone with a stupid irrational grudge against him.

Mina grabbed him tightly by the shoulder.

[You want me to go out there and help, don’t you?] he asked her.

[Of course not! They’ll kill you!] Mina gasped. [But you’ll do it anyway, so I just wanted to say ‘good luck.’]

[I don’t know if you know me that well, Mina.]

“Will it please you to make up your mind?” one of the monsters asked him, tapping its foot.

Soma clutched at Mina’s talisman and knelt down, resting his forehead on the pommel of the Claimh Solais. He was a stick-your-neck-out kind of guy. Always had been. If he denied that… was it because he’d learned to have an ounce of self-preservation? Or was he letting the castle twist his mind?

And if he leaped into another fight, to what depths would he sink in his bloodlust?

The Claimh Solais suddenly grew lighter in his hand, so light it was nearly like air, and its blade lit up a brilliant blue, burning away the grime and dirt coating the blue-white metal, before it faded away. The blade grew heavy again. As if it were trying to spur him into action.

_Come on, Soma. Get it together. Make up your mind…_

[Mina, are you comfortable staying with the vanguard?] he asked.

Mina glanced uneasily at the vanguard. Soma could tell what she was thinking. Her last experience with one of Chara’s most loyal henchmonsters had not gone very well, to put things lightly. And now those same monsters who’d pledged loyalty to Chara had just watched them beat their own brother to a pulp in pursuit of a senile old man. Who knew what was going on in their heads?

Soma glanced at Willowrot. She’d begun to look uncomfortable watching the fight. She bit her lip in concern. Turned out even Dracula’s minions had their limits.

 _Dammit, Chara,_ Soma thought. _You’re even losing your own crowd. No one likes a heel._

“Mina, you stay here. And all of you—” Soma pointed to the rest of the monsters. “If you lay a hand or a flipper or a branch on her, I’ll swallow all your souls.” He stood up, pulling the blue CuttleCamo cloak from his backpack, and hoped its trip through the canals hadn’t shorted out its circuitry. Just this once, one of Alphys’ inventions had to pull through.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STAND MASTER: ASRIEL DREEMURR  
> STAND NAME: [FIRE WALK WITH ME]


	32. Round Perdition’s Flames, Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Chara's struggle for vengeance comes to a bitter end.

With their foot firmly planted on Senator Enright’s back, Chara held out their hands, gazing at the wisps of silver fire and gray-white smoke rising from their upturned palms. “It was not by my hand that I was once again given flesh,” they said. “Mother and Father… they gave their souls to give this body life. They made me their child, in blood as in name, and they sacrificed themselves for it… to grant me this lineage.”

They threw their head back and stared up at the craggy stone ceiling. “But this holy royal fire, all this raw power, the strength of humans and monsters brought together as one… it wasn’t enough.” They turned their gaze back toward Asriel, a smoldering look in their eyes. Black streaks traced lines of tears down their cheeks. “They sacrificed themselves so I could live, Asriel, can you even imagine…”

Yes, yes, he _could_ imagine. Asriel had been fifteen. Toriel and Asgore had sacrificed themselves to protect him. Asgore fell—his father, the strongest person he’d known, reduced to dust in an instant—and his mother nearly had her life snuffed out as well. Asriel had missed his father for so many months. So many years. He _still_ missed his father. There was a big dad-shaped hole that followed him wherever he went. And every minute he spent not honoring that sacrifice, he felt a weight take hold of his heart.

“You… you should know better than anyone else that our magic is nothing compared to human firepower. What use is my Invisible Sun, Asriel? What use is it when a drone can wipe out a neighborhood? When you can massacre dozens of people with a single gun? How can our strength compare to the force of an empire?”

Asriel picked himself up off the ground, the fog clouding his mind lifting. These weren’t the words of the Zero he’d known. The melancholy, the longing, the regret in Chara’s voice… those were real emotions: emotions that Zero—the demonic amalgam of all of Chara’s darkest impulses—had never been able to truly feel. “Is that… is that what this is all about, Chara?”

Chara wreathed their hand in silvery flames and let the fire dance across their fingers. “My parents… their final gift to their sole heir was in vain. Their sacrifice… was in vain.” They clenched their hand into a fist, and the flames went out. “I stood among the ashes and realized how weak and powerless we all are. That no matter how strong someone like you or me can become… we are always at the mercy of men like…” They drove their heel into the small of Enright’s back, making him gasp in pain as he writhed against the sand. “Him!”

“Please, let me go, you lunatic!” Enright bawled.

“And to this day I still don’t know why he did it. I watched the war start eleven times over, no matter how hard I tried to prevent it, no matter what I did… I watched him slaughter my people, and I don’t even know _why._ Was it prejudice? Was it imperialism? Was it money? Was a single mountain so precious to him? Was it a matter of pride to take back land his predecessor had ceded? Was it about consolidating power?”

Chara lifted their foot, granting Enright a momentary reprieve—the senator sighed in relief—and then Chara stomped on his back. Asriel had expected them to drive a knife into it—but it seemed Chara simply wanted their prey to suffer, at least for now. Enright howled in agony. _“Why did you do it?”_ Chara screamed.

“ _Why did you murder my friends?”_ Chara brought their foot down again on Enright’s back, and again, and again, as the senator writhed in pain. _“Why did you murder my family? My neighbors? My countrymen? Frisk? Why were their lives so worthless to you?_ Why, _Edison? Tell me! Give me an answer!”_

“ _Chara!”_ Asriel forced himself to his feet and conjured another partisan, burning the very air around him. The hungry rushing sound of the flames igniting in the shape of the semi-trident caught Chara’s attention, if only for a minute, and as they glanced at the blade pointed at their heart, they eased the pressure on Enright’s back and turned to face Asriel.

“I told you,” they hissed at Asriel, “to stay out of this.”

“Chara, this man...” Asriel gestured to the senator. “This man didn’t _do_ anything to you! He’s never even _met_ you!”

“Don’t you dare stand against me, Asriel. I _deserve_ this. _He_ deserves this. So stand back—” They conjured another knife, rolled Senator Enright over, and pinned it through the man’s shirt and into the ground like a tent peg. Then a silvery-translucent sword shimmered to life in Chara’s hand, its edges only barely visible as thin white lines wavering in the heat.

“This is why I didn’t want you following me here. I don’t want to hurt you, Asriel. I never did. But I have to do this, and I knew—I _knew_ —that you could never understand!”

Asriel struck Chara, forcing them to step off of Enright’s prone body. Sword met knives, knives Asriel could barely see, and Chara’s leg lashed out, tracing another bloody slash across Asriel’s cheek.

Chara’s next kick grazed against Asriel’s perforated body armor. Asriel still struggled to take into account Chara’s invisible extra reach with their conjured-upon-demand stilettos.

Asriel swung his spear, and Chara pulled in close, closer than the reach of Asriel’s blade, and drove their elbow into his throat. Asriel felt his trachea nearly collapse and staggered back, choking and gasping for air until at last his throat cleared and fresh air soothed his burning lungs.

“It doesn’t matter what universe he comes from,” Chara growled, lashing out with fistfuls of knife blades poking between their knuckles like invisible claws. Asriel struggled to evade them—he couldn’t even _see_ them unless he took the time to look closely. Time he didn’t have. He leaped well out of the way of every slash and strike, overcompensating just to be safe. “A leopard doesn’t change his spots! And just because he hasn’t done to you what he’s done to me doesn’t mean he _won’t!”_

As Chara charged him, Asriel grabbed their forearms, twisted them, and threw Chara aside with their own momentum, tossing them ignobly to the ground. Chara threw a knife, and were it not for the telltale glint of it sailing through the air Asriel wouldn’t even have seen it; the knife glanced off his shoulder.

“You can’t kill him just because of what he _might_ do!” Asriel insisted.

Chara and Asriel locked blades once more. _“Why not?”_ Chara snarled, spit flying from their mouth and vaporizing against the roiling flames crossed between themselves and Asriel.

“It’s _wrong!”_

Blades crossed again. Sparks flew again. A parry here, a riposte there, a knife grazing Asriel’s ribs, the butt of a spear cracking Chara’s collarbone. Chara grabbed the partisan’s shaft with both hands wide apart and twisted the spear out of Asriel’s hands, nearly wrenching his shoulders out of his sockets. These inhuman bursts of strength—it wasn’t coming from their muscles. It was the energy of Chara’s spirit. Their _determination._

Asriel stepped forward and screamed as a sharp pain lanced through his foot. As his nerves from his toes all the way up his leg shrieked and burned, he looked down and saw a telltale blade poking up from his shoe.

“I didn’t want to hurt you,” Chara said, tears welling up in their eyes. “Believe me, that’s the last thing I wanted to do. But I have to do whatever it takes to stop you, Asriel. Because… I have to do whatever it takes to stop _him.”_

Asriel gritted his teeth and squeezed his eye shut as he willed the pain of his partial crucifixion to leave his body. He tried to lift his foot off the blade, struggling as pain flowed in waves and pulses from the wound.

“It’s not about revenge, Asriel. Not _just_ about revenge. It’s because… only I know what he’s capable of. And I don’t want what happened to me to happen to you.” Chara took a deep breath. “Do you know why, Asriel?”

Asriel tore his foot from the ground, screaming as he brought it down again free of the knife’s blade.

“You’ve always been the weaker one! And no matter how hard you hit, you’re _still_ weak! I could see it the instant I arrived here in your world! You’d sell your own home out from under your own feet without even realizing it until it’s too late!” Chara shouted, loosing a flurry of blows that rained down on Asriel like a hailstorm. Asriel responded in turn with a rush of his own. Some blows landed; others met in midair, and their knuckles cracked against each other’s.

“Humanity will take _everything_ from you, Asriel! Just as they took _everything_ from me! You’re powerless to stop it, but I—I can _save_ you! I can do what you can’t! I can _erase_ anyone who stands against you!”

Asriel fell back, conjured another polearm—this one a simple quarterstaff with no blade—and thrust it at Chara. Chara sidestepped it, wrapping their fingers around the shaft. They yanked at the staff as they tried to force Asriel to the ground, their teeth grinding, their arms trembling as they struggled against Asriel’s greater strength.

“Everything I do here—” Chara spat the words from their bloodied mouth—“Everything I’ve done—everything I’ve yet to do—the lives I’ve taken—the lives I have yet to take—it’s all for you! For _your_ kingdom! It’s because—you’re my brother— _and I love you!”_

The words pierced Asriel’s mind.

_I love you._

In all Asriel’s life, he’d never heard Chara tell him that. Even before their possession and fall from grace. They’d told him that they _liked_ him. That they _cared_ about him. That they thought he was the best dork in the universe (usually when they wanted to cajole him into doing something risky). But that they _loved_ him?

The strength left Asriel’s body like water down a drain, and Chara forced him onto his back, holding the flaming staff against Asriel’s throat. Their red eyes had gone soft, and tears dripped down Chara’s cheeks, rolling across their neck and dripping onto Asriel’s face.

Chara stood up and buried the staff up to its hilt in the sand. “I saw the stars go out, one by one, and was powerless to stop it,” they told Asriel, shaking their head. Their shoulders quivered as they began to laugh. “I came here to find a world balanced on the precipice and realized that finally, I had a chance to make things right. To stop my present from becoming your future.”

“Chara,” Asriel croaked, climbing to his knees and then standing on shaky and trembling legs, “no matter how you feel about me, this is still wrong.”

Asriel’s words only enraged them. _“CAN’T YOU SEE I’M TRYING TO SAVE YOU—”_

Asriel struck Chara across the face, driving another stream of red blood from their nose. Chara drove their fist against his collarbone in retaliation. They traded blows, one after the other, each battering their worn and weakened bodies.

Chara had much less upper body strength than Asriel; their knuckles could barely even bruise him. But there was something else behind their punches: magic that wreathed their hands in a shimmering haze like the wavering, watery heat-haze that blanketed desert roads. And each punch Chara threw set Asriel’s nerves aflame, as if their touch had lit fires under his skin.

He recalled the autopsy report Undyne had relayed to him: _Morton Kaine had been burned from the inside out._ That was Chara’s ability—to kill with a touch. If they had truly harbored any desire to kill Asriel or Undyne, Chara could have done it in an instant. And yet Asriel could sense they weren’t simply toying with him the way they were drawing out Enright’s suffering.

Chara was singed, covered in soot and sand that had mixed with their sweat and the blood pouring from their nose and mouth and formed a greasy sludge matted against their skin. Asriel was sure he looked no better. But Chara kept their arms high and their fists clenched, and the fiery look in their eyes was unquenchable.

Despite their frailty compared to Asriel, Chara wouldn’t back down, nor give so much as an inch. As his knuckles rapped against Chara’s forearm, as he brought his knee up to their gut, Asriel felt the sheer determination emanating like a palpable field of energy from Chara’s body. It was no wonder Chara had been able to push themselves so far past their breaking point.

Asriel fell back as the two fighters circled each other, each probing for an opening, evenly matched in resilience and determination. For an instant Asriel saw his younger self reflected in Chara: he saw the pain, desperation, and anger he’d felt in battle all those years ago in their eyes. And Asriel felt what Undyne had often told him about in their training: kinship in the fury of their fists, when you fought someone and you could _feel_ their soul like some kind of telepathy.

_Do you feel it, too, Chara?_

Chara’s next punch slid across Asriel’s forearm; their next, following immediately after, drove into Asriel’s stomach. The body armor cushioned the blow, but the strange fire emanating from Chara’s fists passed through it like a phantom. Asriel fell to the ground, feeling as though he were about to vomit—his stomach tied in knots.

Chara stood before Asriel, panting, glancing over at their prey across the arena. There was still bloodlust in their eyes. Asriel couldn’t afford to give up now, not when an innocent life was at stake. Chara glanced back at Asriel, their demeanor saying wordlessly, _stay down._

Asriel couldn’t. His fingers brushed against the sand and caught the ragged fabric of his shirt, the hard enamel of one of the collar’s buttons. He clutched the shirt and flung it in Chara’s face along with a handful of sand. As they reeled back Asriel sprang to his feet.

Wiping sand from teary eyes, Chara threw a jab; Asriel cross-countered; their fists met each others’ cheeks, rattled their teeth, and sent shivers down their aching bodies. Asriel felt the saliva in his mouth start to boil and scald his tongue, and gasped, steam pouring out from between his teeth.

The moment their blows landed, time seemed to stretch out to an eternity. The two combatants were frozen for a moment before both Asriel and Chara fell to the ground, their backs cushioned by the sand. For a split second, a second that seemed to drag on into minutes, an uneasy peace settled over the coliseum.

Asriel’s vision started to blur as his eyelid grew heavy, overcome by the throbbing pangs from a myriad bruises and minor wounds all over his body. He couldn’t so much as lift a finger now, and he could only hope that Chara was just as weary.

But as his sight began to fade, Asriel saw Chara stagger to their feet. Asriel, though, struggled to do so much as lift his head.

“Chara,” Asriel gasped. It hurt to talk; burns stung his tongue and the roof of his mouth, as if he’d forced down a glass of boiling water. But he had to stop them with whatever he had at his disposal. He wasn’t the wordiest person in the world. When speechwriting, it could take him an hour to craft a paragraph, and he would always run it by his mother. But now, when fists had failed, words were all he had left.

“Do you know what I see when I look you in the eyes?” Asriel asked.

Chara didn’t answer.

“ _Do you know what I see?”_

Chara shook their head.

“I see… I see the vilest, evilest, most despicable and irredeemable creature I’d ever met.” Asriel went on, his mouth dry, his singed tongue heavy in his mouth. “Zero took my life from me. Zero took my eye from me. Zero took my dad, Zero almost took my mom, Zero nearly took my kingdom. Zero hurt my friends, and… and they did it all with _your eyes._ They even took…”

The memory hurt, even now. Frisk had appeared in front of Asriel, translucent and hazy, ghostlike, bioluminescent blue flower petals fluttering through their phantom body. _You'll do fine without me. You'll make new friends,_ they’d told him, before they’d vanished forever.

“Frisk.”

Chara was standing, but now they hadn’t moved so much as a hair’s-breadth, transfixed by Asriel’s words.

“Frisk. They were,” Asriel whispered, “in so many ways, a better friend than you. I miss them so much, and in your eyes… I see the reason why they aren’t here today. I’m sorry.”

Chara’s clenched fists fell open. They turned to face Asriel.

“I tried so hard not to, Chara. Because it isn’t fair to _you._ I couldn’t punish you… for the evils another you committed.” Asriel took a deep breath. “Because… I wanted to believe that you were _different.”_

Chara stood there for a moment, speechless.

“That you were my _family.”_

Their eyes grew misty for a moment.

“Was I wrong?” Asriel asked. His eye welled up with tears he couldn’t hope to stop from flowing. _“Was I wrong, Chara? Have I been foolish? Is this all my fault? Should I—Should I have murdered you the_ second _you stepped out of your coffin?”_ He choked and sputtered as he tried to sit up, the arena spinning around him. “I—I don’t know if I could. I don’t know if I can _be_ so ruthless. But you— _you_ wouldn’t have had a problem, wouldn’t you? If you were in my shoes…!”

“Asriel…”

“If you’re going to do it,” Asriel said, his voice quavering and cracking, “if you’re going to murder that man, then… you’ll have to kill me, too. Because I couldn’t let a ghoul like you go on like this.”

For a while, Chara stood there immobile like a statue. Then they raised their hand, trembling, slowly placing their middle finger and thumb together.

“ _I wish you understood,”_ they whispered.

With but a moment’s hesitation, they snapped their fingers.

Asriel looked up and saw a ceiling full of glittering, half-invisible blades suspended in midair above where Senator Enright lay. At Chara’s command, they all began to fall. Asriel rose to a kneeling position, spurred by pure adrenaline, and squinted past Chara, his blurred vision resolving for an instant into a clear picture as their knives of Damocles fell from the heavens. _“No—!”_

Chara turned to face Senator Enright, prepared to revel in their vengeful brand of justice, then gasped and stumbled backward.

The body was gone. And standing on the other side of the field of knives buried in the sand up to their ghostly hilts was Soma Cruz, the dull blade of the Claimh Solais dangling at his side.

Chara stepped backward, as if repelled by the sight of him. “Wh… Where’s Enright?”

“I moved his body,” Soma told him. “He’s gone.”

Chara looked around. “No,” they snarled, seeing neither hide nor hair of him anywhere. “He can’t have gotten far! I’d have _noticed!”_

“The King did a good job of distracting you,” Soma said. “While the two of you were slugging it out, I covered him in Alphys’ invisibility cloak and helped him escape.” He smirked. “You’ll never find him.”

Chara summoned a sword and lunged at Soma, a hoarse scream tearing itself through their throat, and Soma raised his blade.

–

Soma held the Claimh Solais with both hands as Chara’s phantom sword clashed with it. _Come on,_ he urged the too-heavy legendary sword. The blade was still dull as shit, too. _Start glowing, dammit! I’m doing what you wanted me to do, aren’t I?_

“If you knew,” Chara gasped, panting, “if you had any idea, even _half_ an idea of the stakes—you’d be on my side!”

Soma was thankful the king had tired Chara out so much. He could just barely swing this two-ton monstrosity in his hands unaided, but fortunately, Chara’s movements were about as sluggish as his. “Oh, yeah, trying to kill an old man! So noble!”

“ _Don’t you talk to me about nobility!”_

“Why not?” Soma let go of the sword with one hand, staggering as the momentum from his swing pulled him backward, and tagged Chara’s shoulder with a line of fine spider webbing—courtesy of the same soul he’d used to sew his hand back on. Soma wrenched his arm back, throwing Chara off their feet and through the air.

Chara hit the ground and rolled across the sand, but landed on their feet like a cat. “You don’t know what it means to be responsible for an entire kingdom!” Their sword clashed against Soma’s, sending shivers up his arms, deep into his bones. “I can’t let my history repeat itself in this world!”

“You self-righteous prick!” Soma tossed the Claimh Solais aside and dove to the ground as Chara swung their sword where his head had just been, summoning a sturdy wooden javelin and bashing it against Chara’s chin. It didn’t stop them. “You call _me_ a murderer while you run around offing old men? At least I’m _defending_ myself!”

“I’m defending the _world,_ Soma!”

Soma ran through the other souls in his collection. Blood sword, javelin, axe, knife, fireball, _etc._ all proved just as effective in holding Chara back—they either deftly dodged whatever he threw at them, or tanked the hit with inhuman determination. Soma was beginning to think Chara didn’t care how hurt they got—Soma could kill them right here and their ghost would just pick up where they left off.

 _I’m so weak now,_ he thought. _Is it the amulet? I could probably kill them in a second if I threw it away…_

Chara pushed Soma to the ground and stood tall, their chest heaving. “You all might think me mad… but I swear to you…” they raised their fist into the air. They looked around the arena once more. And then they stopped.

And smiled.

Chara flung out their arm, and Soma followed where their hand fell and saw, lying in the center of the arena, Senator Enright. He lay there, clutching a twisted ankle, half-covered by the CuttleCamo cloak. _Dammit, Eddie,_ Soma thought. _That’s the last time I stick my neck out for you._

“My heart and my actions are utterly unclouded! _They are all those of justice!”_ Chara raised their hand and snapped their fingers, and the glittering rainfall began anew.

Soma made a mad dash for the senator. He dove over Enright’s body just as the knives hit.

Asriel cried out in shock and fright. Chara screamed with rage, once again denied their vengeance.

The knives cut through the armored vest beneath his coat, but Soma barely even felt the pain. He found he could even stand up, despite the dozen knives buried in his back reducing him to a human pincushion. _Is that good enough for you,_ he thought, looking at the dull blade of his completely useless sword, _you rusty piece of junk?_

Chara stood there, frozen, horrified, their mouth agape. “Soma Cruz, you… You…”

“ _Soma!”_ Asriel cried out.

Soma took a few more halting steps toward Chara. Chara scurried back as he approached. But then Soma’s legs gave out and buckled beneath him and he sank to the sand.

It was funny. Nothing hurt, but he couldn’t keep moving. Was this what it felt like to die?

Chara regained their senses and rose to their feet, shaking. They gingerly stepped over Soma’s body on their way to the senator.

“ _Soma!”_ Mina ran across the arena, kicking up plumes of sand as she rushed to Soma’s side and helped him to his knees.

“It’s okay,” he told her. It took all his strength to reach out and clasp his fingers around Mina’s warm wrist as she held him tight. “They missed my vital organs.” His body went limp and he felt himself sink into Mina’s arms, closing his eyes and picking out the harvested soul of the plant-woman he’d slain. A wave of relief washed over him as his wounds began to heal, and Soma opened his eyes. “I’ll be fine,” he said, smiling weakly.

“ _Chara!”_ Asriel rasped, his voice hoarse. _“Chara, please!”_

Chara stood over Senator Enright. The senator looked at them, and the two of them shared a glance. A wispy, silvery, phantom sword coalesced in Chara’s hand, and he swung it over his head and prepared to bring it down as an executioner would, ready to sever Enright’s head from his shoulders.

“Whatever I did,” the senator moaned, “I’m sorry.”

A thick, oppressive silence filled the arena.

“ _Please!”_ Asriel cried out.

The silence lingered.

And then Chara’s hands opened, and the sword slipped from their grasp and fell to the ground, disintegrating into sparks and smoke as it touched the sand.

They hung their head, kicked the senator halfheartedly, and began to trudge with a bowed head toward where Asriel lay. Soma saw the two of them exchange weary glances before Chara collapsed to their knees at Asriel’s side.

“See what I mean?” Soma asked Mina. “Just had to work out all that anger.”

–

Asriel watched Chara fall to their knees at their side, tears cutting shining, wet paths of unsoiled skin through the smeared dirt and blood plastered to their face. He’d never seen Chara cry like this, and Asriel wondered what it had taken to finally break their hellish resolve.

He didn’t know how to feel—thousands of conflicting thoughts were running through his aching head.

Chara really _was_ a murderer. Undyne had been right.

But they also loved him.

Chara _loved_ him.

And even the evil they had done had come from a desire, an obligation, to protect people who’d been important to them.

Just like their father.

Just like Asgore Dreemurr.

Immediately following Asriel and Chara’s deaths all those centuries ago, King Asgore Dreemurr had announced an ambitious yet cold-blooded plan to free his people and avenge his loss. Every human who wandered into the kingdom would be put to death, their souls harvested to eventually bring down the magical barrier imprisoning the monster race underground.

Over the course of that operation, Asgore had killed six children. Toriel, who had abandoned him as soon as he’d announced his intentions, never fully forgave him for his war crimes, just as he never forgave himself. He spent the rest of his life, until he sacrificed himself to protect both the worlds of humans and monsters alike, working tirelessly to pull himself up from the pit he’d dug for himself through his horrible deeds.

Asriel felt Chara’s hand brush against his as they slumped over and fell facedown next to Asriel. They glanced at him from the corner of their eye, their face pressed against the churned-up sand. As their fingers curled around his, their mouth opened, but no sound came forth.

“You did the right thing,” Asriel told them. “Thank… thank you. Thank you, Chara. I… I love you, too.”

Chara closed their eyes and for once they seemed at peace.

With great difficulty Asriel pushed himself to his feet, conjuring a simple staff of fire to serve as a crutch, and limped over to where Soma was recuperating. The knives—which had since disintegrated—had formed only shallow wounds in his back, although there were a lot of them. The kid’s precious coat was ruined, but Asriel was relieved to note his condition seemed stable.

All the same, though, he cursed himself for not being strong enough—or, rather, not being willing enough to fight at full strength, consequences be damned—to handle this without enlisting the help of a wet-behind-the-ears brawler like Soma.

“Soma? You okay?”

Soma looked up at him with a dazed look in his eyes, cuts and scrapes aplenty marring his face, and coughed as Mina held onto him. “Okay? _Okay?_ Christ, you guys are insane,” he moaned before passing out.

Asriel realized that he now understood exactly how his mother and father must have felt seeing him languish in the hospital after some of the fights he’d gotten into, and wasn’t sure how he felt about the revelation that he’d finally become his parents.

–

As they lay down with their cheek pressed on coarse, cold sand, battered and sore and so wracked with agony they could barely even imagine standing, Chara thought they heard the voice of a friend echoing through the mists of time, and as their eyes squeezed shut in anguish they remembered that night so long ago when Undyne had been there for them. Undyne… their _friend._

_It was the night Chara had begged Undyne to kiss them. After pinning them to the floor, Undyne pulled Chara up and led them to the kitchen table, taking her own seat beside them. “Lemme tell you a story.”_

_Chara dug their fingers into her arm, their nails scratching against Undyne’s cerulean-hued scales. “All I want,” they snarled, angered at being snubbed—for the first time since Frisk’s death they felt truly_ angry— _at having such a simple request denied, “is to know, to_ remember _what it—”_

I need _someone_ to love me, _they thought,_ anyone, _please—_

“ _It’s about your old man.”_

“ _Father…” Chara loosened their grip. Undyne pulled her arm away and ran her webbed fingers over the crescent-moon indentations their fingernails had made in her scales, wincing. “Go on,” Chara said._

“ _This is a story about back when I was still trying to get into the Royal Guard. Back when I was training under your dad.” A spark idly leaped from one finger to another as Undyne recollected her youth. “You know, things were pretty crappy back underground. And it was hard to think that things really would get_ better. _In fact, it was easy to think things would just get worse and worse, forever._

“ _And one day, when I was just a kid, it really just… bit me in the ass one morning. I couldn’t even get out of bed.” Undyne laughed. “Yeah. Imagine that. The great Undyne, strongest knight in the kingdom, the Spear of Justice herself. Stuck in bed. Because_ that’s _how much life sucked. Of course, I wasn’t the Spear of Justice yet back then._

“ _The next day, I was feeling just as terrible, but I dragged myself out of bed just so I could trudge over to King Asgore and say, ‘Hey, sorry for missing yesterday’s practice, I just felt like a whole landfill got shoved down my throat and I don’t feel any better today, so, uh, how about a rain check on that while I go wallow in bed for a while?’”_

_Undyne shook her head. “And he said, in that big deep voice of his, ‘Oh, no, Undyne, you’re not going anywhere.’ And I’m just standing there quaking in my boots, thinking, ‘Oh, shit, I’m in it now.’ He asks me to sit down and I’m just about ready to ruin my jeans. And he just goes off and gets a pot of tea and says, ‘Hey, Undyne, what’s the matter?’ And…”_

_Undyne’s eye grew misty._

“ _I didn’t want to tell him what was wrong. Because I’d be telling_ King Asgore Dreemurr, _the last great hope of the kingdom, that I didn’t think he could save us. That I didn’t_ believe _in him. But he just kept badgering me ‘til I spilled the beans._

“ _I thought he’d be angry or upset or just plain disappointed. And you know,_ disappointed _Asgore was way worse than_ angry _Asgore.”_

_Chara nodded. That was how it had always been, even when they’d been a kid._

“ _He wasn’t disappointed, though. Just sad. And he pulled me in for a hug and said, ‘I feel that way too, sometimes.’ And I’d never thought about that before. It was… comforting, I guess, to know that I didn’t have to be strong all the time, either.” Undyne patted Chara on the shoulder. “Don’t worry. Your people still believe in you.” And then, to Chara’s surprise, she leaned in and kissed them on the cheek, leaving a mark of wet crimson lipstick on their skin._

“ _I can’t kiss you the way I kiss Alphys, Chara,” Undyne told them as she rose to her full height, looming over them. “Because that would be really creepy and inappropriate for all parties involved. But I hope Sovereign Chara the Great doesn’t mind settling for less.”_

 _Undyne took Chara by the hand and helped them back to their feet. Chara met Undyne’s gaze, stared into her yellow eye, and felt a sudden rush of_ _emotions. Chara hugged her, burying their face in Undyne’s chest, overwhelmed. Foremost they felt ashamed they had asked such a thing of their friend and constant companion. “Undyne…”_

“ _There, there…”_

_For the rest of the evening, well after Alphys returned home, they traded stories of the old king and queen, of childhoods and mentorships, of family and absent friends, of (in Alphys’ case) unrequited crushes._

“ _Good old Asgore… One time,” Undyne mused, growing somber once more as she finished the last few drips from a bottle of cognac, “back in the bad old days, I asked the big guy what it was like to kill a_ real _human. I was pretty gung-ho about the whole thing, really chomping at the bit to make my mark and get my slice of the heroic glory, and maybe_ that’s _why I didn’t really let myself hear his answer.”_

_She took a deep breath._

“ _He told me not to tell anyone. But he said that every time, it felt like_ he _was the one who was being killed.”_

With the last of their strength Chara balled their fists, churned and blood-dampened sand trickling through their fingers, and they sobbed silently and invisibly into the sand. _Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand?_ they mused, the weight of their sins crushing their straining lungs. _No, this_ _my hand will_ _rather the multitudinous seas incarnadine, making the green one red._

“ _Sovereign Chara?”_

Willowrot’s voice.

The revolution. The nascent republic. Just as before, Chara had failed it as a leader. No one in this castle would dare respect them now. They had failed yet again to free their spiritual kin from oppression. Now the universe knew who they were: Chara the Weak, Chara the Pathetic, Chara the Bringer of False Hope.

“ _Sovereign, do you need help?”_ Rough, twiggy wooden fingers curled around Chara’s wrist as a multitude of hands helped them up to their knees, and freed of the cloying sands, Chara could breathe once more. They hadn’t realized they’d nearly suffocated themselves.

A ghoulish maid tugged at Chara’s ragged clothes, exposing their many wounds to open air as it set to work cleaning them with a stinging ointment. These monsters weren’t abandoning Chara—they were staying by Chara’s side, still just as loyal as before.

“You… You’re still with me?” they asked, astonished and astounded.

A few of the monsters looked at each other. Willowrot shrugged. “I—I mean, you’re still better than Dracula, right?”

Chara stared up at the motley crew of misfits, central among them their most eager lieutenant by far. “My comrades… from the bottom of my heart,” they rasped, “I thank you. And… please accept my apology.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "It's over, Chara! I have the moral high ground!"
> 
> "You underestimate my power!"
> 
> Chara is the midgame boss in every Metroidvania that functions as the end of the game if you didn't do the right things to get the true ending beforehand, like Richter in Symphony of the Night or Albus in Order of Ecclesia (or, funnily enough, Flowey in Undertale).


	33. Iron-Blue Intention

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Soma learns what it really means to be a hero.

Soma recovered quickly, thanks to the souls he’d collected (and the armored vest beneath his shirt had spared him the worst of the stabbings), and he used his same powers to tend to the others as well—minus Chara. It wasn’t that he held a  _ grudge  _ against them for turning him into the Incredible Human Pincushion—oh, wait, he kind of  _ did— _ but more that  _ they _ wouldn’t accept his treatment, because  _ of course they wouldn’t, the prideful ass. _

Soma felt like the mouse pulling the thorn out of the lion’s paw as he channeled regenerative energy into Asriel’s foot, closing the smoking wound that tore through both his shoe and foot from sole to instep. He was reminded of the scar the king had shown him early on in their expedition into the castle and was amazed Asriel could still stand, or was even still conscious.

Asriel sighed in relief. “What I would’ve given to have that power when I was fifteen.” He smiled. “Could’ve gotten away with a lot more.”

One of the vanguard smeared a smoldering poultice against the wounds covering Chara’s body before bandaging them up. Chara winced and grimaced. 

“You know,” Asriel told them, “Soma can—”

“No, thank you.” Chara snapped their fingers and pointed at the fishman as their attendants finished dressing their wounds. “A change of clothes and some privacy if you would, please.” The monster and several cohorts bowed and departed.

Undyne, her injuries healed as well, grabbed Chara by the scruff of their neck and lifted them up the ground. “Whoa, whoa, hold on. You think you’re going anywhere after all the shit you just pulled?”

Chara eyed her as menacingly as they could as they tried to keep their feet on the ground. “Are you putting me under arrest,  _ Captain?” _

“Is  _ murder _ a crime?” Undyne retorted.

“Cool it, you two.” Asriel stood up, testing his weight on his feet. “Whatever grudges we have will have to wait until after we’ve gotten out of here.”

Undyne growled and relented, and Chara wearily brushed themselves off once freed from her grip. “Yeah, whatever.”

Chara’s attendants returned moments later with a tall folding screen and piles of clothes. Soma was surprised they were still loyal to Chara after what had transpired, but he supposed that in Dracula’s castle, just like on Earth, it took a lot more than one slip-up to ruin a political leader’s career.

Chara stepped behind the screen and came out with a black greatcoat that looked straight out of a seventeenth-century buccaneer’s wardrobe. The outfit underneath was no dress—perhaps they’d decided it was too restrictive—but was just as fancy. Tassels, epaulettes, buttons, flaps, stitched gold filigree and embroidered piping—the works. Willowrot gasped and told Asriel how much handsomer  _ he’d  _ look in an ensemble like that (he retorted that he’d only put a shirt on if she did). Soma, on the other hand, tried very hard not to laugh at the gaudy relic of bygone centuries.

“Ever heard of a place called Waterloo?” Soma asked Chara.

Chara dug their finger in their ear. “I—I’m sorry, I think I have some sand stuck in here. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think I just heard some unsolicited fashion critique from a boy with a Fab Four mop top.”

Well then. They seemed to have recovered from their bout. Recovered enough for a punch in the face, even. “You’ve got sand in something, all right. A-and it’s not like your haircut’s much better, Stalin!”

“How  _ dare  _ you call me a tankie?”

Mina stayed Soma’s hand. “Soma, they are not worth it.”

“Undyne, do you still have both halves of your communicator?” Asriel asked as he helped himself to one of the available coats Chara hadn’t chosen. His new biggest fan Willowrot, true to her promise, picked one out as well. Mina sighed in relief as the dryad covered herself, secure that at least in one part of the castle modesty had triumphed.

“Of course.” Undyne’s eye lit up. “I’ll give home base a call!”

“Ask Alphys how much time we have.” Asriel fiddled with his jacket’s lapels. “I estimate about ninety minutes before we’re stuck here forever.”

“Can do!” Undyne put the call in, and her demeanor instantly brightened as her wife came in on the other end of the call. “Hey! My darling Alphys-chan! How are things on your end, my delicious french fry? Aw, man—seriously?  _ Boring? _ Really? Am I the  _ only  _ person who still has their communicator on?”

Chara raised their hand. “I’m still wired in—”

Undyne glared at them. “Shut up, you. No, no, Alphys, dear, of course I wasn’t talking to you! Now, you’re keeping track of time, right? How much time do we have to get out of the castle?”

There was a pause.

“Yeah, Asriel thought as much. We’ll be right up. I love you! No,  _ you’re _ my favorite pocky stick!”

_ [Why are all of her nicknames for her wife food?]  _ Mina asked Soma. 

Soma shrugged.  _ [I don’t know,] _ he said. _ [I just met all these people yesterday.] _

“About eighty-three minutes,” Undyne told Asriel. “Plenty of time.”

“If we get going now,” Asriel responded. “Alucard and Miss Belnades are still unaccounted for. You, Soma, and Mina should head directly for camp now. I’ll take Chara—”

A gargoyle marched up to Chara and sharply saluted. “Sovereign!”

Chara ignored Asriel and focused their attention on one of their comrades. “At ease, comrade. What have you got for me?”

The gargoyle brought its clawed hand down. “We’ve lost contact with the resistance cell in the clock tower.”

Chara waved him away. “Then send someone from the hanging gardens to investigate.”

The gargoyle grimaced, although it was hard to tell since his resting expression was gruesome enough.  _ Talk about resting bitch face,  _ Soma thought _. _ “We’ve lost contact with them, too.”

Chara’s face fell. “The chapel? The ballroom? The guest quarters? What about Psycho Jenny, where’s she?”

The gargoyle bowed his head. “All silent, Sovereign.”

“Hold that thought. I’ll get back to you.” Chara stomped off, growling rather like a hungry dog.  _ “Where are all my men!?”  _ they shouted out to no one in particular.

A familiar, sickeningly haughty voice rang out from above.  _ “Wouldn’t you like to know?” _

Soma looked up. Graham Jones, impeccably neat and clean despite the nasty cut on his forehead, stood from the emperor’s box seat above the arena and laughed. 

With a new enemy to fight, the last vestiges of fatigue vanished from Soma’s body.  _ “Graham?” _

Graham went on, addressing Chara. “Your precious vanguard? They’re dead, Your Majesty.” He spat the title from his mouth as if it were a chunk of gristle. “They’re all dead.” He waved his hand over the arena. “Your little dream of a kingdom to call your own in Dracula’s castle died with them, I’m afraid.” He gestured to Senator Enright, who was just now starting to struggle his way back to consciousness. “Mr. Enright, so good to see you awake. Why don’t you leave these horrible creatures behind and come with me?”

Chara flung their arms out defiantly. “Father Jones, you’re too late! Your boss will never claim this castle!”

Graham’s eyes bulged, and he threw his head back and howled with laughter.

_ “Him?  _ You think I wanted  _ him _ to inherit the powers of Dracula?”

“What?” Senator Enright asked.

Chara’s defiant scowl faltered. “Well—well, why else would you have brought him along with you?”

“Oh, no, no, no. Dear, darling, delusional Chara. You’ve got it all backwards.”

Graham grinned ear-to-ear, the corners of his mouth stretching so widely Soma almost expected his skull to pop right out of his mouth. “Thieves and usurpers, and the fools who stand with them, know that _I_ and I alone am the true successor to the throne of the dark lord, the true inheritor of dark powers of the son of the dragon, and the master of this castle and all within it.”

Of course. Chara had the excuse of being blinded by their vendetta, but what excuse had Soma had for not realizing it the instant Graham had attacked him? The “stolen property” Graham had been so furious about and had insisted Soma return… it was none other than the souls Soma had taken, the souls that Graham, as the presumed heir to this castle, believed belonged to him!

_ How dare this walking piece of offal seek to claim this castle, _ Soma thought with a vehemence and violence he’d thought the charm in his pocket was supposed to stop.

“But the truth is, the power of Dracula and the domain of his castle simply isn’t enough. Count Dracula had nine hundred years to try and rule the world and what was the sum of his accomplishments?” Graham made a “zero” with his hand. “But once Edison Enright sweeps the primaries, he’ll inevitably select  _ me _ as his running mate.” Graham brushed his silvery hair. “From there… President Enright. Vice President Jones. Had quite a ring to it, doesn’t it?”

“‘Sweeps the primaries?’” Soma scoffed. “That guy can’t sweep a floor!”

“I was going to do great!” Enright protested, insulted.

“What the hell?” Undyne shouted, shaking her fist. “You’re completely nuts! If you’re Dracula, why would you want to be  _ vice  _ president?”

“I don’t  _ want _ Dracula to be my running mate!” Enright retorted.

“Oh, don’t be like that.” Graham scowled. “Face it, Enright, you don’t have mass appeal. Sure, the American people may find a homely, down-to-earth underdog with a double-digit IQ  _ endearing, _ but you’ll need  _ me _ to get the evangelicals.”

Enraged, Enright pulled a gun from one of the dead Secret Service agents. “You rat bastard!” Enright shouted, the gun shaking in his hands as he aimed it at Graham. “No wonder you didn’t tell me what the hell was going on here! You’re batshit crazy is what you are!” He fired off a few shots at Graham to no avail. “I just want to be president so I could give my buddies cushy cabinet positions like my hero, Warren G. Harding! Not hand over my country to a vampire!”

“Oh,” Graham said, disappointed. “I thought you’d be all in, but well, if you’re so intransigent, then I suppose I’ll have to pick a new horse in this race.” He drew a gun from his blazer and fired back, putting a bullet right between the senator’s eyes with perfect accuracy. “Hmm. Maybe Mark Zuckerberg will have a better chance this year.”

Enright slumped to the ground. Chara glanced at the senator’s lifeless body, then back to Graham, equal parts angered and confused.

“Sorry. I couldn’t help myself. I’d have done it sooner or later, eventually,” Graham admitted. “After all,  _ Vice- _ President Jones is only one tragedy away from  _ President _ Jones…” Graham threw his arms back and shouted out to the heavens.  _ “And President Dracula!” _

_ President Dracula? _

This had to be a sick joke. It was the most ridiculous thing Soma had ever heard, and considering that most of the things that had been said to him over the past three days had been the most ridiculous things Soma had ever heard already,  _ that _ was saying something.

Soma glanced over at Asriel.  _ He _ was a responsible adult. Surely he could see how ridiculous this whole thing was.

Asriel didn’t seem to find it ridiculous. And Chara’s moribund expression made it clear they took such a mission statement deathly seriously as well _. _

“Imagine!” Graham did a gleeful foot-tap. “The United States of America! The world’s largest nuclear arsenal, the world’s largest naval fleet! And every ship crewed by the legions of darkness flowing forth from this castle! The seat of the ultimate, eternal empire!”

Fear gripped Soma like a bucket of ice poured down his back. Graham’s devilish grin radiated waves of evil energy like a black miasma, a crushing pressure that pushed against the souls of everybody in the arena, human and monster alike. “All that might, marvels of science and horrors of sorcery, all at the disposal and the discretion of  _ me, _ Graham Jones, reincarnation, successor, and inheritor of Dracula!”

As Graham stood at the balcony, malicious energy seeping from every pore, a bolt of lightning struck him in the chest.

“I’ve had enough of this guy,” Undyne declared.

The smoke cleared, the dust settled, and Graham stood without so much as a hair out of place.

Chara looked back at Undyne. “Um, yes, er… I should have warned you about _ that.” _

Graham made a show of brushing some nonexistent dust off his suit as he peered down at Soma and the others. “This little detour from the throne room had me very upset, you know.”

So Graham hadn’t taken the throne room yet. That meant there was still time to stop him before he took full control of the castle.

“But… then I realized what a perfect opportunity it gave me to kill you all!” He threw out both his hands.

Chara exploded.  _ “I’ll rip your heart out,” _ they snarled,  _ “and feed it to you before I hang you with your own entrails!” _

A shot rang out, blowing a plume of sand up from just ahead of where they stood, and Chara fell to their knees, instantly silenced. Smoke wafted from the tip of a pistol Graham had drawn from within his jacket. Asriel rushed to their side and helped Chara up.

“Oh?” Graham smiled. “Does the little monarch not like guns? I can oblige your preferences, if you’d like.” He threw out his hand. Monsters crawled, flopped, and flitted out of the woodwork at his command—zombies, ogres, skeletons, giant bats, and fiery demons. “Did you think _you_ were the only one recruiting allies in this castle?”

Soma grabbed the Claimh Solais and begged it to lend him its power.  _ Please, if ever I’ve had a need for a magic sword… _

But the blade of the Claimh Solais, the legendary Sword of Light, remained dull, its weight heavy in Soma’s hand.

“It’s truly a shame,” Graham whined facetiously, “that none of you will live long enough to see the glory of my reign!” He threw back his head and laughed as the ground began to shake. Soma grabbed Mina and nearly lifted her off her feet as the sandy floor of the arena bulged and tore open, sand pouring into an endless black chasm where the stone foundations fell away.

A giant man, burly and hairy, emerged from the hole, clutching the edges with massive calloused hands as sand trickled into the abyss beneath them. He was at least fifty times the size of a grown adult, his teeth—in a mouth covered by a bristly gray-black beard—the size and color of old tombstones, his sinews as thick as bridge cables. A lattice of iron bars had been bolted over his gray-green skin and a thick sheet of metal covered his left eye. Hot, thick steam billowed from his mouth and nostrils.

Graham, standing above the giant’s head, crossed his arms. “Meet Balore, the demon whose stare inspires terror in all who see it! He’ll be the last friend you ever make!”

Balore raised a fist—clasped in thick iron manacles and dangling a length of broken chain—and buried it in the side of the arena, tearing through the carved stone stands and hurling chunks of rock through the air as if it were all so much wet cardboard. 

_ “That’s  _ Balore?” Mina exclaimed.

Soma held her to his chest and covered her as debris showered down by the two of them. “What, you know this guy?”

“I’ve read about him! That’s the name of… of…” Mina struggled to recall. “A Celtic demon! A-a king of giants! His eye has—”

“‘Celtic?’”

Mina nodded. “Y-yes, Irish mythology. H-his eye is filled with—”

Of course! The Claimh Solais would definitely start working for him if Soma wielded it against such a foe. He raised it high. “Hey, Balore! Recognize this, you son of a bitch?”

Balore stared at him with a yellowed, rheumy eye and bellowed, showering Soma with giant-spit. His breath was so noxious it was nearly akin to mustard gas. Soma held a sleeve to his mouth and tried not to choke. Mina did the same.

Soma kept waving the blade. It was still heavy and dull.  _ Come on. Isn’t this enough? _

Balore looked at Soma’s sword, let out a mocking laugh, and swept a hand across the arena. Soma locked his arms around Mina and leaped over Balore’s cupped hand, sailing through the air.  _ I’ve got to have a soul in here that can slow my landing, _ he thought desperately as he watched the giant’s chain whip around underneath him. If he landed too soon, he’d be crushed by it, him and Mina both…

Before he could hit the ground, though, and be dashed against Balore’s broken manacles, Soma was grabbed by a pair of talons around his shoulders. A giant bat with great leathery wings about as wide as the wingspan of a two-seater plane had snatched him from midair.

Soma couldn’t thank fortune he’d been rescued—the bat pitched upward as if it wanted to dash him against the crooked stalactites covering the ceiling. Lances of lightning zipped past it, but the giant bat was far too nimble to be hit by Undyne’s spears.

As the wind whipped past Soma, he jabbed at the bat’s furry, maggot-ridden underside with the Claimh Solais. It didn’t have a sharp blade, but with sheer force the sword could puncture the bat’s stomach and tear its heart apart. The bat squealed so loudly and so shrilly that Soma’s ears felt wet, and its body shriveled up as a brilliant orb of light burst from its decaying body and sank into Soma’s chest.

Soma and Mina dropped like a stone. He squeezed his eyes shut.  _ Bat soul. Come on. Please be useful…  _

Suddenly he felt a great weight fall from his chest. No, no, that wasn’t accurate. He weighed less! But there was something heavy dangling from his claws.

Wait.

_ Claws? _

Soma glided through the air, his heart beating like a hummingbird’s, straining as he flapped his wings—since when did he have wings? And where were his arms?

He and Mina changed course and landed on a balcony ringing the arena, thankfully at a much lower speed and gentler angle, and Soma clutched at his aching head. He felt a human hand against a head that seemed relatively human shaped, which was at least somewhat of a relief. He struggled to piece the alien sensations that had filled his head together. Had he—

“Soma!” Mina helped him to his feet and pressed the Claimh Solais back into his hands. “Did you just turn into a bat?”

“Uh, yeah, I think so.” Soma looked down at the arena beneath the two of them. Balore swatted at the others like errant flies; fortunately, they proved just as hard to hit.

Balore threw down his hand; Undyne caught it with magnetic telekinesis, holding the giant’s entire arm up in the air as electricity crackled around his cuffed wrist. The length of chain whipped up, smacking into Balore’s metal latticework-crossed cranium and dislodging the metal patch that covered his left eye. A foggy, unearthly light shone from it.

“Soma!” Mina squeezed his hand. “I tried to tell you—his eye has—!

A gout of fire poured out from Balore’s uncovered eye, bursting against the ground and walls and splashing around as if made of both water and fire. Asriel, Chara stumbling at his side, and Undyne scattered in its wake as Balore’s hand came crashing down, knocking the royal siblings off their feet and separating them. At once, Asriel was surrounded by footsoldiers, and Balore diverted his attention to Chara, his fingers wiggling. A sickly tongue covered in drool and caked-on plaque passed over the giant’s lips. 

Chara scurried away as shots from Graham rang out, kicking up plumes of sand near their feet. Asriel shouted their name as Graham’s minions clustered around him. Undyne was stuck in the same situation at the opposite side of the arena—both occupied not by superior strength but by superior numbers.

The Claimh Solais lifted in Soma’s hand, its weight vanishing so suddenly he nearly thought he’d dropped it. Its blade blazed with a pure, hard blue light like a methane flame.  _ Not this again,  _ he thought.

The legendary sword nearly wrenched itself out of Soma’s hand as its blade pointed square at Chara’s helpless form down below. Balore raised his fist over them as if they aimed to squash an insect.

_ That  _ was who the Claimh Solais wanted him to protect?  _ Chara?  _ “You’re kidding!” Soma shouted at it. The blade’s gemlike glow pulsed and its tip sparkled. It wasn’t lying.  _ This  _ was what the sword wanted from Soma to earn its mastery.

Soma glanced around the great cavern. There wasn’t anyplace that looked safe to leave Mina—and who knew what was crawling in the tunnels outside? “Mina, grab onto my back.”

She did so. “Whatever I do,” he told her, “don’t let go.”

“What are you going to—”

Soma jumped off the balcony. Mina screamed.

–

_ No, no, this was all wrong, _ Chara thought as they struggled to will their legs to move. But every time they did, Graham got a shot off, and the sound of the bullet flying so close to them turned their legs to jelly. With every shot that rang out, all they could see was themselves holding onto Frisk, their hand stained with blood and bits of skull and brain.  _ This can’t be happening. It can’t have all gone wrong again so quickly. _

The great giant drew his fist back. Dust coated his knuckles, tracing every dry crack in the horrible monster’s skin. If Chara didn’t move, he would pulverize them with a single blow—they’d be nothing but a beetle on a windshield.

“Asriel!” Chara called out. They glanced to their left—Asriel was still surrounded by Graham’s thralls, and while they posed no danger to  _ him,  _ every body they threw in his way kept him away from Chara.  _ “Undyne!” _ It was the same situation to Chara’s right—although after everything that had happened they doubted Undyne would so much as lift a webbed finger for them.

_ Somebody. Anybody. Please! _

But nobody came.

The giant’s fist came closer as it traveled in an inexorable trajectory.

_ I can’t die like this! _

A man in white, his body wreathed in an ethereal blue glow, a blindingly-bright sword in his hand and a red-haired girl clinging for dear life on his back, landed in front of Chara, in front of the monster’s enormous fist.

_ “Burn in hell!” _

He swung the sword against the giant’s fist, and where steel met flesh, the gargantuan arm came to an abrupt stop. As the glowing blue blade cut into the giant’s flesh, shockwaves shot up the monster’s sinewy arm; flesh cracked like eggshells and burst open, and the whole of the giant’s arm erupted in a flare of otherworldly blue light.

_ “And don’t forget the marshmallows!” _

The giant howled, throwing his head back; a gout of fire poured from his evil eye and tore through the ceiling. Water poured from a severed main into the arena, dousing the giant and making him choke and sputter.

The man who’d saved Chara’s life, as well as the girl holding onto him, glanced back at Chara. Not quite a man—a boy. With a tattered and stained white coat. And dirty white hair.

“Oh, no,” Chara moaned, “not  _ you.” _

With the giant distracted, Soma offered his free hand to Chara. “Need a—”

“No, no, I-I can stand just fine,” Chara said, willing the numbness from their legs entirely out of sheer spite. “H-how did you—”

Soma hefted his sword. “Claimh Solais. Legendary Irish sword.” He gestured at the giant demon, who still writhed in pain, loosing the most horrific of bellows as he clutched at where his arm had once been. “Balore. Legendary Irish demon. Do the math.”

More shots rang out from the emperor’s box seat. More than enough to make Chara’s legs wobbly again. Soma groaned, sheathed the Claimh Solais, and grabbed Chara by the waist, sweeping them off their feet as if they were some damsel in distress.

“Wh—What are you _ doing?” _

“I don’t like it either,” Soma insisted, straining under the weight of two people as he ran into the corridors outside the arena and out of Graham’s firing range. “But my sword told me to save your ungrateful ass, so that’s what I’m doing.”

Their life was at the whim of a magic sword. How demeaning. Chara nearly wished the giant had killed them.

Once he had made it to safer ground, Soma was all too happy to let Chara go, straining as he was under the weight of two people, and Chara more than happy to be let go. They caught their breath as they leaned against the sandstone wall of the corridor they’d taken refuge in.

“Why,” Chara gasped, “does your sword… want you to save  _ me?” _

Soma shrugged, then unsheathed the Claimh Solais and rested the flat of its blade against his shoulder. “I’ve got to go back out there. You think you two’ll be safe back here?”

“With  _ them?”  _ Mina asked.

“Wait.” Chara stood up. “I can’t stay here and babysit your girlfriend.” They bowed to Mina. “I mean no offense.” They hoped that would be enough. It didn’t look like it was; Mina didn’t exactly look  _ mad  _ at them, but she certainly wasn’t happy. “But we have to go after Graham.”

“Shit, you’re right.” Soma groaned. “Hang on, Mina. The safest place in the castle is by my side right now.”

–

Soma and Chara crept around the arena, Mina hanging from Soma’s back like Yoda, peeking out onto the balconies here and there to measure their progress around its circumference. Graham still stood in his box seat, reveling in the battle raging before him. Soma snuck across the balcony until he was just overhead. “Here. We can drop down and get right behind him.”

Balore, still stuck in the middle of the arena, turned around and caught a glimpse of Soma. His eye widened as he noticed the blazing Claimh Solais, and he lashed out with his remaining arm, tearing the balcony from the wall as he whirled around. His eye spewed a firehose-torrent of liquid fire in the wake of his outstretched hand.

Soma figured he’d lost the element of surprise at this point. Shots rang out—and bullets burst through the stone floor beneath his feet! Chara yelped and pulled Soma back into the hallways ringing the arena, and Balore’s probing hand and burning gaze passed them by.

“Touchy with bullets, aren’t you?” Soma quipped.

“Have you ever seen your best friend lose half their face, Soma?” Chara snarled.

Soma felt suddenly humbled. “Um—er, no?”

“Then shut up!” Chara slammed a trembling fist against the wall. Once they’d regained at least some of their composure, they motioned into the dark tunnels ahead of them. “We can use these corridors to sneak up on Graham from behind. I know the way.”

Before they could head out, the hallway shook and shuddered, and the light filtering in from the arena went dark. Soma looked back and saw Balore’s face pressed against the threshold, his blistering red-yellow eye filling nearly the whole aperture.

Soma held the Claimh Solais in front of him. “Both of you, run,” he told Mina and Chara, desperately hoping this sword could block Balore’s evil eye.

Balore’s eye widened and its aqueous humor began to bubble. A dim hellfire began to fill the hallway. Soma shouted out and took a running start toward the giant’s eye. But as he came near and the eye prepared to fire, the giant reeled back and screeched in agony. Blood poured down his forehead from a black sword lodged in his brow.

A man in a black cloak swooped down, wrenching the sword from its impromptu sheath and tearing a cut all the way down his nose and chin, splitting his face open. As the man landed on the balcony, long tresses of silver-blonde hair swirling around him before fading to black.

It was Alucard in the flesh. He gingerly wiped the blood on his cloak as Balore fell down the hole he’d created, torrents of blood gushing from his head, and vanished into the abyss.

Then he looked up and noticed Soma. “Mr. Soma Cruz!” He looked back at the abyss that now served as Balore’s final resting place. “You were quite fortunate, young man.”

“Tell me about it.”

Alucard stepped forward, drawing a black satin cape around his greatcoat. He walked past Chara, peering at their jacket. “Excuse me,” he said.

“Y-yes, Alucard?” Chara smiled nervously.

Alucard reached out for the jacket’s sleeve. “May I?”

Chara looked him up and down, and with a little smile said, “You most certainly may.”

Alucard rubbed the thick, gold-trimmed cuff between his forefinger and thumb. Chara looked a little disappointed. “I thought this looked familiar,” Alucard said. “This is one of  _ my _ old coats.”

Chara froze for a second. “My apologies,” they stammered, “do you want it back?”

“No. It looks good on you,” he said, patting Chara on the shoulder.

Chara blushed, evidently unprepared to deal with what, from Soma’s perspective, looked like a massive crush. “Wh-why thank you. You’re quite dashing yourself—”

His hand still on Chara’s shoulder, Alucard pinned them to the wall and drew his sword. “Dreemurr. Of what import is Dracula’s throne to you? Why pursue it so feverishly?”

Chara squirmed against the wall. “You have a lot of nerve, judging me like this… you’re Dracula’s  _ son!” _

Soma reached out and grabbed Alucard by his cloak. “Alucard, wait—you’re making a mistake. Wait! Let them go!”

Chara wriggled against Alucard’s iron grip, but went rigid as soon as the blade of the Stardust Omen, black with its crackling blue sheen, touched their neck. “Do you think I’m the scorpion to your frog?” they asked, irate.

Alucard withdrew the blade at Soma’s insistence, but kept hold of Chara.

“Rest assured,” Chara explained, “I have no interest in becoming some cruel, bloodstained Vlad the Impaler. I won’t deny I’ve  _ thought _ about it. But… I just want to make things better for the monsters here in this castle.”

Alucard released Chara. 

Relieved, they picked themselves up, striking a noble pose. “It’s up to you if you want to believe me. But right now, you have a much worse enemy than me. So…” Chara smiled, reaching out with an upturned hand. “Until that man has been dealt with… truce, perhaps?”

Alucard glanced at Soma. Soma shrugged. The rhetoric seemed to fit in with Chara’s emotional outbursts during their fight with Asriel, and  _ those _ had been way too heartfelt to be lies. And if the Claimh Solais had willed their survival, then it must have seen  _ some _ goodness in them… even if it was only a single atom. “They’ve got a point,” he told Alucard. “In spite of… well,  _ everything.” _

Alucard reached out, took Chara’s hand, and shook it.

–

As the giant fell, the gout of water pouring into the depths from the ceiling froze solid and shattered, showering the arena with jagged ice crystals. Asriel and Undyne, now pressed back-to-back against Graham’s hordes, used a ring of fire and lightning to protect themselves. Most of the other creatures in the arena weren’t quite so fortunate, and found themselves skewered and chewed to pieces by the hail of improvised flechettes. Straggling survivors found themselves picked off by arrows from a ragged band of archers clustered around the upper balconies. The cavalry had arrived.

Asriel caught sight of Yoko Belnades rappelling in from above, followed by a large man in military fatigues. He waved at her, thankful she’d saved him the trouble of looking for her and Alucard in addition to saving his and Undyne’s lives.

Yoko hit the ground and stopped to catch her breath. “How’d you pull  _ that  _ off?” her new friend asked.

“Simple chemistry,” she said in between gasps. “Did the same thing by accident back in school.  _ Boom.” _

The soldier whistled. Undyne’s eye nearly doubled in size.  _ “Boom _ is right. That is the  _ coolest thing I’ve ever seen someone do!” _ she shouted out, grabbing Yoko by the shoulder and shaking her like a ragdoll. Despite spending so much time with Alucard, it seemed from the look on her face that Yoko had never met anybody quite as  _ extra _ as Captain Undyne.

Asriel caught sight of Graham angrily tossing his scarf around his neck and storming off into the depths of the castle. The minions he left behind circled around the arena, weapons drawn.

“All of you, get behind me,” Asriel ordered, cracking his knuckles. “I don’t want to hurt any of you by mistake.”

He raised his hand and snapped his fingers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't expect there to end up being a Goku and Vegeta thing going on for Soma and Chara. It just sort of happened.
> 
> Of course, that means Graham would be... Frieza?
> 
> Looks like we've got another 50 chapters left while Castlevania explodes!


	34. Graham's Game, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, the fight against Graham begins, with all of Castlevania at stake.

Alucard spread his map across the floor of the hallway. Chara held their hand over it, producing a ghostly, silvery light that cast a little illumination over it; Soma just held out the Claimh Solais and lit the map up with a light as strong as an LED lamp. Chara scowled at him for stealing their thunder.

They’d explained everything they knew about Graham to Alucard as quickly as possible. Alucard had just sighed and rolled his eyes, muttering some exasperated derogatory comment.

“If Graham seeks the throne room, there is only one way there.” He set his finger atop a large room in the center of the castle. “This room functions as a gateway.” He led his finger up a passage leading straight up. “If you can pass by the gate, this spiral staircase leads up to the tallest tower.” His finger kept going, leading from the tower to a room that hung from the air like one of the castle’s hanging gardens. “The throne room is here.” His finger traveled back down the map. “And we, and this Mr. Graham, I presume, are here.” He drew his finger back to the core of the castle, underscoring just how close they were to it.

“What do you mean,” Soma asked, “by ‘gateway?’”

“A sort of barrier to entry. The only way to pass is for…” Alucard stroked his angular chin, lost in thought. “If I recall correctly, to open the way to the throne room four people must enter the castle’s core together.”

“So Dracula had multi-factor authentication fifteen years early?” Soma inquired.

Alucard, not a tech person in the slightest, was nonplussed by Soma’s question. “Excuse me?”

“Mr. Alucard,” Mina spoke up, “if three other people need to join Father Jones to go to the throne room… why would he be headed there by himself?”

“Obviously, he isn’t.” Chara stood up. “We have to go.”

“What about the others?” Mina asked.

“Do you _want_ President Evil to be the next Dracula?” Chara took off in a huff, their pounding footfall echoing across the narrow stone walls. “Besides, I know my brother. Everyone back there will be just fine.”

Alucard held out his hand. “Wait, Dreemurr—”

But Chara was already gone.

Soma cleared his throat. “Alucard, um…”

“Is something wrong, Soma?” Alucard asked as he finished scooping up the castle map.

“Am I Dracula?” Soma asked.

Alucard’s face didn’t show any emotion, but not for lack of trying. “Do you wish to _be_ Dracula?” he asked in return.

“N—no?” Soma wasn’t sure he understood the point of the question, but at least he knew the answer to that one.

“Well, then,” Alucard said, “if you know the answer to my question, then you know the answer to yours.” He ventured deeper into the castle. “Come along. Your new friend may be in trouble.”

“We’re really more like temporary allies,” Soma insisted, but he followed Alucard in pursuit anyway.

–

It didn’t take long for Chara to catch up to Graham. As tired as they were, as much as their body still ached, what pushed them along was their seething hatred for that man, hatred for his smug face, the way he’d just waltzed in and acted like he’d _owned_ the castle—and its inhabitants!

No monster deserved a cruel master. Chara was going to be a new leader, a strong leader, one who could command a free and unconquerable kingdom of monsters, and they were going to prove it to Graham when they tore out his black heart and crushed it in front of his face.

Graham froze in place as Chara approached. “You’ve come a long way for me, haven’t you?” He turned around, adjusting his scarf. “Aren’t you tired?”

“I can’t sleep,” Chara said, “as long as someone like you lives within _my_ castle!”

Graham laughed. _“Your_ castle. My, my. Chara, was it? Do you see me as a rival?”

“A—”

“A contender to the throne. A challenger I ought to recognize and respect as my equal.” Graham took a few more steps toward Chara.

“You’re not my equal.” Chara let fire flutter across their palms. Just a little closer and they’d burn Graham away from the inside out. No weapons—just fists. “You’re just an ant to me.”

Chara was about to pounce until Graham whipped out his pistol, freezing them to the spot. “What a coincidence,” he breathed. “You took the words right out of my mouth.”

Chara stumbled over their words as they stared into the black void of the pistol’s barrel, that fateful gunshot echoing in their mind, the sight of blood and bone spraying through the air playing on an endless loop. “I-I—Y-you’re nothing but—but a—a—” The words wouldn’t come together in their head, try as they might.

“Would the true master of this castle cower so readily?” Graham drew closer, taking slow, deliberate steps. He knew Chara’s weakness now, and was ready to milk it for all it was worth. “Why so scared? I believe it was your very own Chairman Mao who said, ‘political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.’ Wasn’t it, _comrade?”_

Chara found themselves unable to speak anything but a pathetic squeak.

“Let me make one thing perfectly clear. You’ve made yourself a thorn in my side, no doubt, but I have zero concern for you or your antics,” Graham continued. “You’ve taken nothing from me that I cannot simply take back with a slight modicum of effort, as I have quite clearly demonstrated. A nuisance at best. Even the monsters I _haven’t_ enthralled are more willing to support _me_ over some proletarian pipsqueak with delusions of grandeur. But isn’t that _always_ how it goes?”

Chara stood there, mute and rooted to the spot. This was humiliating.

“Now, Soma Cruz, on the other hand…”

Chara finally willed sound back to their throat. _“Him?”_

Graham came within inches of Chara, the barrel still aimed at their face, and reached out, drawing his finger gently down Chara’s chin. Chara couldn’t move—they couldn’t even breathe. They knew right then that Graham truly was everything they’d feared Enright to be—and so, so much more.

Enright had been a totalitarian dictator in his prime, even if he had fortunately ended up a washed-up nobody in _this_ timeline. Graham, though, went _beyond_ even that. What he would do to Mount Ebott, to the _world,_ would be orders of magnitude worse than any simple dictatorship. The future under Graham would be a boot stomping on a face for all eternity.

“I’m afraid,” said Graham, _“he’s_ the only one in this castle who concerns me at all. He took the souls of _my_ monsters. He took _my_ property.”

“Monsters are not your propert— _aaaugh—!”_ As Chara spat out their retort, the nerves beneath the tip of Graham’s finger screamed out and a bolt of lightning tore through their mind, driving the thoughts from their head and replacing them with a sharp wave of pain. For an instant they thought Graham had shot them. They fell to their knees, scarcely able to breath.

“I’m afraid you’re nothing compared to that boy,” Graham continued, “despite your delusions of grandeur which, I’m sorry, I can’t bring myself to indulge any longer.” He set down the gun, sliding it across the floor far out of reach both of himself and Chara, and pressed both hands to the sides of Chara’s head. “All you are to me is… practice.”

“Prac—” Chara’s words left them as another jolt electrified their brain. They cried out and fell to all fours. For precious seconds, their brain felt fuzzy and empty, blissfully empty.

“Oh, yes, Chara.” Graham gently stroked their chin, as one would a dog. Next to the pain, it felt… _good. Soothing._ “You’re nothing if not strong-willed. If I can conquer _you,_ wipe the slate clean and give you a nice, new, obedient personality, then Soma will prove even easier to bend to my will.” He smiled. “The two of you will be my eternal servants, faithful to the end of days! Won’t that be wonderful?”

“I’d rather die!”

“I’m sorry, that’s the wrong answer.” Another jolt of pain. “It would be in your best interest to submit. Think about it. You’ll never worry about food or drink, shelter, safety… all your needs taken care of… Wouldn’t that be grand? You won’t have a care in the world. A far cry from the misery of your… human existence.”

 _Human existence._ The very words stung. “I may _look_ human, Graham,” Chara spat, “but _that_ is where our similarities end!”

Of course, that outburst granted them another jolt of electric agony.

“Well, give me half an hour to collect my inheritance, and then I can fix that for you. Forget servants—you and your friends can be my pets! How does that sound? Nice?”

Their head still fuzzy, Chara found themselves nodding along as if by instinct. Graham patted them on the cheek. There was no pain accompanying that gesture.

“I’m glad you see things my way. Now, let me clean off your dirty little brain right here and leave it nice and empty. Once I’ve taken on Dracula’s mantle, once I have so many more powers at my disposal… I think you’d make a very good dog. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“What makes you think you could do _that_ with Dracula’s powers?”

Graham shrugged. “Intuition. Anyway… what do you think?”

“Well, I’ve always been more of a cat person, actually— _augh_ _!”_ Chara’s head filled with static again.

“No, no, far too arrogant and disrespectful creatures, cats. They’re not _you_ at all.”

“ _A dog is fine,”_ somebody mumbled, and Chara realized only a second later that the voice that had said it was their own.

“I’m so glad you agree with me. But let’s table that for now, hmm? I just want to focus on getting your mind squeaky clean for your new master…”

Chara couldn’t move their body. They _wanted_ to, they wanted to tear Graham’s throat out, but—

Graham seemed to _know_ what they were thinking. A violent impulse was met with another brain-clearing zap. When their thoughts turned simple and docile, they were rewarded with gentle, encouraging, caressing words.

 _I can’t let him reprogram me._ _I have to hold out just long enough for Alucard to catch up._ Chara struggled to bring their thoughts to the surface. But soon enough even stringing words together began to hurt. _I—have to hold on. If I lose my mind… my family…_ They imagined their brother’s face. Asriel, so kind to them, even now, even here—and even such a simple act of defiance drew Graham’s ire, as if he could see every thought in their head.

“Oh, you poor thing. What need do you have for a family… when you have _me?”_

While Chara’s brain was still clearing from the burst of static, Graham gently stroked their hair. Mere seconds ago Chara would have thought it demeaning. But it was a _wonderful_ feeling compared to the pain. _Anything_ was.

“See?” the rogue priest asked, his voice syrupy sweet. “It’s so much better when you behave, isn’t it?”

 _I don’t deserve this,_ they thought.

 _I deserve this,_ they thought.

 _I don’t deserve this pain,_ they thought.

 _I deserve this pain,_ they thought.

To Chara’s horror, they realized that every thought in their head, even the most uncharacteristic ones, even the most contradictory ones, they were hearing in their own voice. And the thoughts they loathed the most had become the loudest and hardest to ignore.

Chara weakly nodded. _No, no,_ they told themselves. Graham wasn’t just wiping their thoughts away like marker erased from a whiteboard, he was _infecting_ their brain, planting instincts inside them to drown their own mind out. _This is all wrong…_

As much as they wanted to react with a cutting insult, their tongue lay heavy and thick in their mouth. Yet Graham seemed to sense their intent. “Oh, don’t be like that.” Graham’s tone took a sour turn, and just that—just _that_ was enough to bring up the memory of pain in Chara’s head.

“Oh, you poor thing,” Graham said, noticing Chara’s plight. “You _want_ to behave, don’t you, dear? You just have all those pesky thoughts in the way…” He lightly tousled their hair. “All this… philosophy. These ideologies, this praxis, these _isms_ whirling through your head, the fruits of your careful studies. Does it really hurt _less_ when you put a _name_ to all that pain in your heart? Be honest, Chara…”

“It—it—d-does…”

“Does it?” Graham tousled their hair, as if combing through their brain like a filing cabinet. Was he seeing their _memories,_ too, and not just their thoughts? “Hmm. You’ve studied fascism quite a bit. Did knowing how it worked protect you from it when your neighbors fell to it?”

He kept browsing. “Oh, dearie me, it doesn’t seem to have—why, you might as well have never read Umberto Eco at all for all the good it did you! ‘Ur-Fascism.’ Er, _what?_ Hah!”

Graham was right. Their intellectual pursuits had been just as useless as their magic powers. Everything Chara had, everything they _were_ had been useless.

“And it didn’t help your sweet sibling… Frisk, was it? My, what a family you had. Two goats and two… whatever the hell you two are. _Were.”_

Chara ground their teeth. _“No—those are_ my _memories… please, please don’t look at them, Mas—”_ They caught themselves before the word slipped out, the dreaded word they still feared to say.

“Oh? What was that you just said?”

Chara bit down on their tongue hard enough to draw blood. If Graham could use pain to control their mind, then _they_ could use pain to wrest control away from him. They struggled to move their leaden limbs, succeeding only in raising a hand and grasping Graham by the wrist, digging their nails into his skin. _“Get out of my head!”_

Graham winced as if he’d been punched in the gut and redoubled his efforts, blood trickling from his nostril and over his lip. _“_ _You mangy, intransigent little mutt, I’ll boil your brain!_

It felt as though a bomb had gone off inside Chara’s skull. But amid the cacophony of pain pulsing through their head, they still fought. _I’m Chara. Chara Dreemurr. My parents abandoned me. My family deserted me. I ran away._ _But_ _I made my own family._ _I found a world I fit into and_ _I fought for_ _it_ _._

_But fighting just makes the world hurt more._

_No!_ _I may have done wrong but it was always in the name of_ _just—justi—ju—er—um—_ _good._

_A_ _nd what good did it do me?_

_I stood up for what was right._

_And I killed everything I loved. It was all meaningless in the end._

_It wasn’t all mea_ _—_ _mean_ _—_ _p-pointless._ _I stood against tyr—tyrann—tyra—t—b-bad… people._ No, no, it was all leaking through, their thoughts gobbled up by alternating bursts of painful lightning through their skull and tender, kind, loving fingers against their skin, like pouring sand through a—a—what was the word? A little thing with holes in it?

Thoughts bubbled into their head, thoughts they didn’t think, thoughts they didn’t _want_ to think, but they _did,_ they _did_ want to think those thoughts, because those thoughts made them feel good and they wanted to feel good and all they needed to do to feel good was exactly what Graham said…

_It’s better if I give in. I’ll be happier under Graham’s heel. He’s a good master._

_I’d die before I submit._

_Then die, coward._

Chara pushed back. _My name is Chara and I am strong. My name is Chara and I am a revo… rev… revolutionary. My name is Chara. I’m nobody’s lackey or pet. I’m a king. I will never be this man’s slave. I’m Chara. My brother is Asriel. My name is Chara and I am a hero. A force for good—_

‘ _Good?’ After everyone I’ve hurt and killed? Who am I fooling? But_ Graham _will teach me how to be good at last. All he wants to do is_ help _me._

_No—I am… I’m a… a…_

“Almost there…” Graham smiled.

_This isn’t you, Chara. Stop—_

_I should o_ _bey_ _my_ _master—_ _I must behave for him—_ _he_ loves _me_ _._

_Please, God, make it stop._

“Th… thank you… M—m-ma…”

“Yes?”

There was a small voice in the back of their head. _Don’t give up, Chara! You can still fight! You can’t let him win…_

That name didn’t ring a bell. Chara? Who was Chara?

“M… ma… mas…”

“Give it time,” the master told his servant with a loving smile. “Such a word must be so hard for the likes of you to say. But you can prove your loyalty another way…”

“Yes! Please!”

Graham scratched their chin. “Call Soma down here. You remember Soma, right?”

The servant shook their head.

“Excellent. Call him over here and I’ll make him just like you. Wouldn’t it be nice to have a little friend?”

The servant nodded with renewed enthusiasm. It _would_ be nice to have another friend!

“S… So… Som… m…”

“ _Louder,_ darling.”

There was still a little bit of Chara left in there, shrunken and shriveled and weak, but it was drowning, tearing away from the rest of their brain like an iceberg calving off a glacier, falling away into an endless black abyss…

“I… I…”

_Look at what he’s done to you! You can’t let this happen! Not to anyone else!_

_Be quiet master made me better_

_He made you an idiot._

_I’m happy now_

_No, you’re not._

_I’m very happy shut up_

_You call_ this _happy?_

_Everyone should be happy to have a master like Graham be quiet BE QUIET_

_**ON YOUR FEET, SOLDIER!** _

A feral snarl tore itself from the servant’s throat. And the words that followed were not the ones Graham was expecting to hear.

“ _I REFUSE!”_

Graham shot bolt-upright and stumbled backward as Chara raked at his chest with fiery claws; the lapels of his spotless white suit ripped apart, his violet tie turned to jagged ribbons of smoking cloth that fluttered to the floor.

“ _No!”_ Graham’s once-angelic face was twisted in anger, his once-perfectly-styled silver hair lank and disheveled as sweat poured from his brow, mingling with the blackened crust of blood lining the cut across his forehead. _“You—_ _you belong to_ me!”

Chara stood up, their knees still weak and wobbly as the floodgates in their mind burst and flooded the empty spaces in their head. They could hardly see straight, but they could see that at long last, this disgusting man was afraid. _Where there is power, there is_ always _resistance._

“I quite nearly forgot… how good it feels,” they panted, gasping for air, “even if the heavens should fall… to stand up to someone who thinks he can push me around and tell him… _‘_ _N_ _o_ _._ _’”_

Graham gritted his teeth, blood pouring down both his nostrils and trickling out of his ears, staining his collar crimson. All of the blood vessels in his left eye had burst, leaving the violet-gray iris surrounded by a sea of bright crimson. As Alucard and Soma drew nearer, their footsteps thudding on the stone floors, he turned tail and ran.

“Graham,” Chara spat as Graham retreated, as the last vestiges of the alien mind he had tried to plant inside them drowned. _“Would the true master of this castle cower so readily?”_

Chara closed their eyes, rubbing at them with both hands. Their head still pounded with the mother of all migraines, and the parts that didn’t hurt were warm and fuzzy. It felt like half of themselves were drunk and the other half were hungover. And they desperately, _desperately_ wanted to break down and cry. Anguish Chara hadn’t felt since the day they’d lost Frisk had returned with a vengeance, squeezing their heart in a vise.

Alucard set his pale, lukewarm hand on Chara’s shoulder, and they felt a strange, gut-churning combination of peace and anxiety. “Are you all right?” he asked.

Chara choked down their heartache and smiled. “Yes. I’m—quite all right now.” Thankfully, Graham’s brainwashing hadn’t stuck… as far as they knew.

“Good.” Alucard lifted his hand as abruptly as he’d laid it down.

“You were screaming very loudly,” Mina pointed out.

“Oh, Miss Hakuba, I didn’t know you cared.”

Mina crossed her arms and pouted, evidently upset that Chara had pointed out how much her kind and caring nature contradicted with her low opinion of them.

Chara tapped on their forehead. “Graham tried to lobotomize me, but much to his chagrin, there was just too much in here for him to deal with. I may have given him an aneurysm. Any luck and he’ll be dead in a few minutes.”

Sure, they were embellishing their mental battle a bit for the sake of bragging rights, but their allies had no business knowing just how close Chara had come to losing their mind. A few more seconds of that torture and Graham would have been teaching them to roll over and play dead.

Chara turned around and continued down the hall. They pressed their finger to their throat. “Doctor Alphys. It’s me, Chara.”

The doctor’s nasally voice crackled to life in their ear. _“Chara? Oh—oh, no, what have you done? Where’s Undyne and—”_

“They’re fine,” Chara answered, a little irked that Alphys, too, saw them as a villain. What had they ever done to _her?_ “I have a message I want you to relay to Asriel. Listen to me very carefully…”

–

The four of them soon made it to the heart of the castle and found a wide open room, its walls elegantly carved with eldritch symbols and ceiling abstractly painted with the same. While the floor was polished marble, a trench ran along the edges, covered with a sturdy iron grating and filled with burning coals. The sound of crackling flames filled the room, and the air shimmered.

In the center of the massive chamber hung a weathered stone cube adorned with worn carvings of knights and demons, pierced from top to bottom by a thick stone pillar. A staircase hugged one side of the cube, curling around two doors, one directly above the other. Scattered soldiers lay strewn about the chamber, some dangling off the staircase, all dead.

The air was thick and hazy, and a rhythmic rumble like the heartbeat of a giant pulsed through the floor. Alucard took out his sword, and Soma did the same. Both blades glowed blue; Alucard’s with crackling electricity, Soma’s with a magical light. “This is it,” Alucard said. Soma felt a chill run up his spine in spite of the cloying heat filling the room. “The castle’s beating heart.”

 _If the castle is a living thing,_ Soma wondered, _and this is its heart, did we just come from its stomach?_

Soma checked one of the soldiers. He’d been shot to death, nearly torn apart by gunfire. He cringed. “Graham killed all these people?”

Chara kicked at one of the fallen soldiers with not a trace of respect for the dead. “He can take hold of peoples’ minds,” they explained. “All it would take is one weak-willed man with a gun to mow down the rest of his troop.”

“Yikes.”

“Um, yeah, _yikes._ Don’t let him get his hands on you, whatever you do,” Chara cautioned Soma as they climbed the staircase, unceremoniously nudging a dead body off the stairs and letting it hit the floor with a sickly smack.

“Why didn't he do it to us the first time we fought him?” Soma asked.

“Are you much for tabletop gaming, Soma?”

“Um, not really, but I listen to a DnD podcast. It's about these three guys and their dad—”

“Well, let's just say we must have made our will saving throws,” Chara replied.

Alucard, Soma, and Chara checked the first room, finding it empty save for four loops of silvery rope that dangled from the ceiling like hangman’s nooses. “Second door it is, then,” Alucard said as he led the others up.

Alucard pushed the heavy wooden door at the top of the staircase open, letting it loose an ungodly squeak from its unoiled hinges. “Chara, Soma, stay close by me. Mina, stay by the door and wait for the others to catch up.” He thrust his sword into the room, and when nothing unfortunate befell it, stepped over the threshold.

Mina squeezed Soma’s hand. _[_ _G_ _ood luck_ _,_ _]_ she whispered.

Soma squeezed back. “You stay safe. I, uh, um…” He knew what he wanted to say, he knew he wanted to say it—but he couldn’t bring himself to say it. “Mina, I…”

“While we’re young, Soma?” Chara threw up their hands and grabbed him.

With quite a bit of coercing, Soma followed Alucard and Chara through, his fingers lingering against Mina’s palm before slipping out of her grasp.

“Wait!” Mina stumbled forward. “Soma—”

Graham Jones stood in the center of a darkened room, in front of one of four stone podiums. Overhead was an ornate metal gate embedded into the ceiling and decorated with writings in an unearthly language. Behind him was a long, high wooden table, stretching from one end of the room to the other, ornamented with gold filigree. A motionless cloaked figure sat behind the table, high above the floor, like a judge. Soma could see in the low light that the figure’s cloak was itself richly ornamented, trimmed with gold and adorned with jewels and lacy patterns around the hood and the cuffs of their sleeves.

It looked like a courtroom. A courtroom with no bench for attorney or prosecutor, and four witness stands.

Graham turned around and clapped his hands. “I’m so glad you’ve come! This is just what I needed.” He gestured to the three unoccupied podiums at his sides, two to his left, one to his right.

Soma felt his stomach churn. _The three other people needed to unlock the throne room… Graham wasn’t going to meet any allies… he was waiting for_ us. “Guys,” he called out to Alucard and Chara, “we need to—”

He looked back. The door he’d come in through had vanished, leaving nothing but a smooth wall. Mina was standing in front of it.

She looked back. “Soma, what happened to the door?”

Soma’s spirits fell. Mina was trapped in here with the rest of them now. “Mina, why did you…”

“It’s over, Graham.” Chara stepped forward. “You’re no match for the three of us together.”

Graham grinned at Chara. “Oh, hello! If it isn’t my most favorite little mutt! Back for more obedience training, I take it?”

Alucard drew his blade, but found himself holding empty air. His sword had vanished. Soma checked his side and found that the Claimh Solais was missing as well. “What the—”

“It wouldn’t work anyway.” A rippling haze surrounded Chara’s hands. “He’s impervious to weapons.”

Graham wagged his finger. “Now, now, Chara. This is a no-combat zone. Put that away, if you will.” And just like that, Chara’s magic faded away.

“How did you—”

“So some of our little heart-to-heart _did_ stick, after all. I could have told you to heel and it would have worked as well. What about ‘sit?’”

Chara’s legs wobbled, much to their surprise. “You vile little—”

Graham put on a shit-eating grin, then threw out his arms and gestured to the hooded figure sitting in the shadows. “Oh, but how rude of me. Would our host like to introduce himself now?”

Torches lit up around the room, bathing it in flickering amber light, revealing the judge. Beneath the violet-black hood was an alabaster skull, only the deep and empty black eye sockets and grinning mandibles visible underneath the cowl. A rich, deep voice, booming and sonorous, issued from the cloaked figure’s mouth.

“You who seek to take the throne of Dracula must prove yourself worthy by the hand of Death himself.” A long scythe appeared at the skeleton’s side. _“_ _Soma Cruz, born with dominance over souls; Graham Jones, born with dominance over minds; Chara Dreemurr, born with dominance over hearts; and Alucard, the prodigal son himself._ _I do believe I’ve found my_ _contestants!”_

Soma was seized with a sudden vertigo, and the room shifted. In an instant, he was standing before one of the podiums—the right one. To his left was Graham, then Chara, and finally Alucard. The room had transformed, as well—beams from strong electric lights sparkled off of dazzling golden arches and white marble pillars. The room was all marble and alabaster; Death’s cloak had turned a pure white as well. Skeletons littered the tiled floor, some human, some inhuman, and some wearing the uniforms of Neo-Ecclesia’s hired Green Dolphin soldiers. Many, it seemed, had already tried to claim Dracula’s mantle.

Behind Death was a sculpted mural carved from an incalculable amount of ivory covering the entire wall, featuring a mass of writhing, suffering men and women, their agonized contortions straight out of a tableau from Hell, grasping at the feet of an ornate throne. Large, ornate and elegantly-carved words above the throne read:

**THE GAME OF THE THRONE**

**PURSUE OR ABDICATE**

Soma examined the podium. There were two jewels set into it—a brilliant red ruby and a forest-green emerald—along with a depression in the stone shaped like a human’s right hand, with a deep and black hole about the size of a silver dollar in the palm. A silvery rope had snaked out of a hole in the podium’s side and knotted itself around his left wrist, binding him to the column—no, not a rope, a snake, its scales glittering in the glare of the stage lighting. It gave him about six inches to raise his wrist over the podium. The snake was cool and slick, but as it tightened its scales fanned out and dug into his wrist. When it came to this game, it looked like the four of them—himself, Chara, Graham, and Alucard—were not a captive audience, but rather captive players.

“ _Soma, are you all right?”_

He looked behind his shoulder. Mina, with her face covered in dirt and her clothes grimy and torn, stuck out from the now-dazzlingly-clean chamber like a sore thumb (of course, a cursory glance around the room showed that everyone else did too, save for the ever-pristine Graham Jones). He gave her a thumbs-up. “I’ll be fine.”

“The Game of the Throne is simple,” Death explained. “For each player in turn, I will draw a card from this deck of cards…” His fingers twitched on his right hand, and a deck of black cards fanned out across them. “The cards I draw determine what the player in question must give up.”

“‘Give up?’” Chara inquired.

“Allow me to demonstrate.” Death shuffled his decks and drew one card, then winced. “Not a good hand. Were this your turn, you would have been asked to sacrifice a significant portion of your frontal lobe.”

“So we can say no?” Soma asked.

Death chuckled. “Oh, yes, you can. When your cards come up, you can choose to pursue or abdicate. By pursuing, you give whatever you have been asked to sacrifice, and move onto the next round.”

The green gem on Soma’s podium sparkled.

“You can move onto the next round by abdicating, as well—unless the player to your left (or, Alucard, in your case, the player furthest to the right) has already refused to make their sacrifice. In that case, abdicating will kill you.” Death rapped his knuckles on the table. “Immediately. Painfully.” He gestured to the podiums. “You also forfeit if any part of your right hand leaves the podium for more than five seconds, in which case, you… or rather, what is _left_ of you… are spared and ejected from the game.”

“‘ _What’s_ left _of them?’”_ Mina cried out. _“Soma!”_ She bolted for his podium.

“ _Excuse me!”_ Death snapped his fingers, and a forest of iron bars grew around Mina’s feet, penning her in. She skittered to a stop as the cage sprouted in front of her, narrowly avoiding running straight into the bars. She clutched at them and shouted out, but made no sound.

“ _Mina!”_ Soma shouted. He turned to face Death. “Let her go!”

“Thank you,” Graham said to Death. “I’m afraid this game wouldn’t be as fun with audience interference.”

“Father Jones is right, Soma,” said Death, wagging his bony finger. “It would be boring if you could simply have someone else free you.”

Mina rattled the bars to no effect. Soma could read her lips—she was still calling out his name.

“Let her go!” Soma repeated.

“The cage will vanish once the game is over.” Death absentmindedly shuffled his deck. “Don’t you worry. She’ll have plenty of air… unless you take too long.”

“Damn you!”

Graham grinned at him. “Don’t you worry your head off, Mr. Cruz. Once you and your friends are dead I’ll make sure your girlfriend is well taken care of.”

“You lay a finger on her,” Soma growled, “and you’re a dead man.”

“Why, Soma, you’ve got the wrong idea altogether.” Graham smirked. “You heathens, always assuming the worst of us priests.”

 _You’re a sick man to even_ joke _about that, Graham. If you get out of this alive I’ll kill you with my bare hands, I’ll rip out your heart and hang you with your entrails and pour every ounce of blood in your worthless body down my gullet and—_

He focused on the weight of Mina’s talisman in his pocket, closed his eyes, and took a deep breath. His anger did not subside, but the violent intrusive thoughts faded away.

“Are you all ready to play?” Death asked.

Soma opened his eyes. He felt he had a good handle on the game. One would force their opponent to sacrifice themselves until they willingly abdicated and were killed, or until they were no longer physically able or mentally fit to play, at which point they wouldn’t be fit to claim Dracula’s throne, either. He nodded. “I’m ready.”

The other three answered in kind. Graham had a severe disadvantage—he had three enemies playing the game. Alucard, Chara, and Soma, though—they were on the same side. They could force Graham to drop out, then forfeit themselves, as long as neither decided to make a grab for power—or grow suspicious that another player would. Soma wasn’t so sure he or Alucard trusted Chara not to betray them the instant Graham was out of the picture, though… but that was a bridge they’d burn when they came to it.

“Now,” Death told the contestants, “set down your right hand…”

Soma placed his right hand on the podium, and the others did the same. There was a sucking sensation, like a million tiny leeches lapping at his palm, and his hand stuck fast to the column. Forfeiting, it seemed, would be harder than he’d thought.

“Let’s start with Alucard.” Death drew a card. “Young master, you are asked to sacrifice… your left ring finger. Do you pursue the throne, or abdicate?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [DAGA KOTOWARU](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cc7oi_D4WtI)


	35. Graham's Game, Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, the game's true nature becomes horrifyingly apparent.

Fire cut through the air.

“ _Asriel. It’s me, Chara.”_

The horde closed in.

“ _I’m heading for the center of the castle to take down Graham. Alucard and Soma are with me.”_

Lightning struck.

“ _Follow me as soon as you can. I don’t think we can do this alone.”_

Gradually, the din of battle died down… leaving Asriel, Undyne, Yoko, Hammer, and Willowrot standing in the center of the arena, surrounded by bloodstained sand.

Asriel surveyed the arena, his shoulders heaving as he filled his straining lungs with air. “Everyone all right?”

One by one, the others chimed in. Undyne wrapped her arm around the king’s shoulders. She was sporting a few new cuts and gashes to add to her collection of scars, but still managed to sport an exhilarated grin. “That could’ve gone a lot worse.”

“Could’ve gone a lot better, too,” Hammer grumbled, nursing a wound on his arm that had turned the sleeve of his fatigues dark red. “But I’m fine.”

Yoko nodded. “A-OK, Your Highness.”

Asriel glanced over at Willowrot. “And you?”

The dryad didn’t speak for a moment, although she tried. She just stared blankly ahead at the detritus of battle.

“Where are the others?” she asked. “The rest of us? A-Am I… Am I really the last of them?”

Asriel found himself at a loss for words.

“I just wanted their lives to be better. _Our_ lives to be better.” Willowrot fell to her knees, sniffling as amber sap ran down her cheeks. “What was the point of it all?” she asked, her voice wavering.

Asriel knelt down and offered her a comforting pat on the shoulder to console the weeping willow. “There, there.”

“What was the point of fighting if we were just going to die anyway?” she cried out. “Wh—Why did I even bother in the first place? If I’d known it would end up like this—it would’ve been better if we’d just laid down and died!”

“Hey.” Hammer reached down and helped Willowrot to her feet. “Hey, you know what I liked about you guys? You weren’t fighting for money or glory. You weren’t even fighting for ideals. You were fighting to _live._ Sure, people die and revolutions fail. They fail more than they succeed, really. Mainly because the bad guys can afford to hire more guys like me than the good guys can… but I digress. That doesn’t make them pointless.”

“But this one _was.”_ Willowrot sobbed into her rough, bark-covered hand. “We didn’t accomplish _anything.”_

“That’s not true,” Asriel insisted. “That little union rally… that was a beautiful thing, wasn’t it?”

“It sure was,” Undyne said.

Asriel let Willowrot cry on his shoulder, even though her sappy tears stuck to his fur. “It’s, um—” He paused. He was about to say, ‘it’s okay,’ but that wouldn’t have been right. It _wasn’t_ okay.

“That human you tried so hard to rescue…” Willowrot glanced at Enright’s corpse. “That was pointless, too, wasn’t it? All your struggle and sacrifice and you didn’t do anything!”

Asriel looked over at the poor senator, sprawled on the sand with a bloody coin-sized hole in his head. His life snuffed out so suddenly and so without reason after so much effort had been expended to keep Chara from killing him.

Asriel avoided looking into Senator Enright’s cold, empty, unseeing eyes, wide open as they were.

“One day, when I was young,” Asriel said as Willowrot clung to him, “my father died. It wasn’t a glorious death or a noble death. It wasn’t a heroic sacrifice. It wasn’t for the greater good. He was there one minute… and then he was gone. I tried so hard to stop it, but it still happened.”

Asriel remembered that moment he found out he hadn’t been fast enough. The crestfallen look on his mother’s face when he’d asked where Dad was. The ache in his heart. The void that was never filled. He still found himself replaying that moment in his mind.

“It was stupid and pointless and senseless. Just like how Enright died. But it wasn’t wrong of me to try and save him.” Asriel struggled to hold back his own tears… and failed. “It wasn’t wasted effort. It _wasn’t._ I had to believe that, and _you_ have to, too. Trying is all you can do sometimes… and that makes failure just as noble as victory. S—Someone really important to me told me once that n-no matter how strong you are, sometimes things don’t—they don’t turn out the way we want them to, and…” He struggled to force his words past the lump in his throat. “Sometimes there are people you can’t save.”

“Everyone has to live with that,” Undyne finished, completing what she’d told Asriel so many years ago while the grief had been fresh in both of their hearts. “But we just have to keep going.”

“Willowrot, Alucard told me this castle was filled with monsters that would just as soon eat you as look at you.” Yoko patted her on the shoulder. “You proved us wrong. That’s beautiful. Even if it all amounts to nothing, standing up for what’s right like that is still worth it.”

“It’s not over yet,” Asriel told her, dabbing at his own teary eyes and trying to force a little authority back into his voice. “Graham hasn’t won yet. As long as you and Chara live, so does your hope for a better Castlevania. Let’s keep it alive.”

“Th—thank you, Your Highness.” Willowrot nodded, trying to smile. “I won’t give up, then.”

–

If he had been asked to sacrifice anything on his right hand, Alucard would have lost instantly, or would have been forced to abdicate. He thanked whatever god of luck had smiled on him.

“I pursue, Death,” Alucard called out. As soon as the words left his mouth, he felt a sharp pain in his hand, and his left ring finger slid off his hand and hit the ground, the pale and spindly digit rolling across the floor. Blood oozed from the stump, but quickly began to clot and coagulate. The emerald set into the stone column flashed.

“Ah, yes,” said Death, “You _are_ pursuing death. I won’t run from you, young master. Now… Chara Dreemurr, was it?” Death shuffled the deck. Alucard noticed that he’d returned the cards he’d drawn for Alucard to the bottom. So there was no chance of running out the deck, then. He drew a card. “Chara, you are asked to…”

“Abdicate,” Chara answered.

“May I at least read the cards?” Death asked.

“Abdicate,” Chara said again, more forcefully. The ruby on their podium lit up. It was a good move—now Graham would have no choice but to take his sacrifice or exit the game entirely.

This was a winning strategy, Alucard supposed—pass on free abdications to Chara and stick the nastiest sacrifices with Graham. But it all depended on how much Alucard was willing—no, _able_ to sacrifice.

“Very well.” Death shuffled the deck again. “Graham Jones— _Father_ Graham Jones. Ah, a man of the cloth. It must be quite a soiled cloth by now.”

“On the contrary,” Graham answered. “I am as pure as the driven snow. I have done nothing wrong in my life. Ever.”

“Graham, you are asked to sacrifice… ten years of your life.”

“Pardon?”

Death sighed. “If you pursue—which you have to—you will instantly age by ten years. Presumably, your life will be ten years shorter, but what do I know? I’m only a humble Grim Reaper.”

Graham did not hesitate. “I pursue.” The green light flashed, and Graham doubled over. When he regained his composure, Alucard could see new wrinkles on his face and neck, deeper crow’s feet at the corners of his eyes. His prematurely-silvered hair did not change at all, nor did the hungry gleam in his eyes.

Death addressed Soma next. “Soma Cruz. The runt of the litter.” He drew two cards. “Soma, you are asked to sacrifice… a portion of your sense of smell.”

Soma shrugged. “Okay.”

“Really? You won’t be able to taste your food as well. Is food not one of the joys of living?”

“I pursue.” Instantly, the green jewel on his podium flashed, and Soma doubled over, his left hand shooting to his nose as he winced and let a sharp _“Ow!”_ leave his mouth. Alucard felt a pang of sympathy for the young man.

“Back to you now, Alucard.” Death drew two cards and whistled in a way that brought Alucard no mirth. “Alucard, will you sacrifice… your face?”

“This old thing?” The face he’d been forced to wear, the face he’d grown to hate? This was an easy sacrifice— _too_ easy, Alucard realized as Death wagged his finger.

“No, no, not that ugly mug, Alucard. Your _other_ face.”

Alucard’s blood ran cold. His _real_ face—not this disguise that had been foisted on him.

“The face you long to see in the mirror—or, well, what do you use instead of a mirror?—but will not greet you. Your true self, as it were,” Death continued. “Will you give that up? Remember,” he said, tapping on his table, “that abdicating will force your teammate to agree to whichever sacrifice I draw next.”

Alucard was struck dumb, and silence lingered in the room, an oppressive, gloomy silence as palpable as fog.

No, he couldn’t, he _couldn’t_ give it up. A lifetime with this body, an eternity with the close-but-not-exact replica of his nose, brows, and mouth, eyes that were the wrong color—could he live with it?

He took a deep breath, squeezing air past the lump in his throat. _It’s such a trivial thing,_ he thought, _compared to a finger, or some other body part I could have mutilated. So why—_ He wanted to say “pursue,” but the words caught in his throat, crashed into the rock in his throat and held there fast. _Why can I not bear to part with this?_

Graham chuckled. “Vanity of vanities; all is vanity.”

A voice from the misty past rang in his head. _Alucard, you take so much after your mother._ This—this was too much to give up. He couldn’t do it.

“Are you so narcissistic?” Graham asked Alucard sharply, mockingly. “Is your true form so beautiful? Does it _sparkle_ in the sunlight, perhaps, Adrian?”

“ _Shut up!”_ Chara shouted at Graham. “His name is _Alucard,_ swine.” They cast a sympathetic glance at Alucard. “I will take whatever Alucard throws at me,” they announced.

“You have my thanks, Chara.”

“Think nothing of it. Anything for a kindred spirit.” Chara winked. Alucard had no idea why.

“Well, Alucard? Have you made your decision?” Death rapped impatiently on his desk.

The fog lifted from Alucard’s mind. “Death, I’ve made my decision. I abdicate this round.”

The ruby flashed red, and Death went on, satisfied. “Very well then. Chara, your next sacrifice is… your visual acuity. Everything more than a few feet away from you will be reduced to a blur—lest you don a fashionable pair of spectacles.”

Chara rolled their eyes. “The things I do for love,” they muttered. “Bring it on, Death. I pursue.” They blinked a few times, then squinted. “Er… about those spectacles…”

“Oh, no, no, those were _hypothetical_ spectacles.”

“Can I at least have _a_ pair of glasses?” Chara asked.

“Sorry,” Death said, “no disability accommodations.”

Chara grumbled something about a lawsuit before Death moved back to Graham.

“Oh, what a change this is, Graham. At last you’re free to abdicate. Your sacrifice is—”

“I abdicate, Death,” Graham announced, leering at Soma.

“What a bunch of no-fun-havers,” Death grumbled.

Another round passed. This time, Chara managed to stick Graham with another sacrifice—one of his ribs—and Death came around once again to Soma.

“Soma Cruz, your sacrifice is… your friendship with young Mina Hakuba.”

Soma said nothing. Alucard felt a pang of sympathy for the boy. All the sacrifices before this one had been trivial, at least for him, and Alucard supposed it must have felt like a welcome, non-serious respite from combat to him—until now.

“Should you take this sacrifice,” Death continued, “you will not forget about your friendship with the girl. But you will no longer _feel_ that friendship. You will look at her and see… just another person. And no matter how hard she tries to rekindle that friendship, Soma, you two will always remain distant. Forever.”

There was a hard gleam in Soma’s eyes. “Well, that’s an easy choice. I—”

“Oh, but Soma…” Graham butted in. “Abdicate, and poor Adrian—oh, my apologies, _Alucard—_ will suffer.” He gestured toward Alucard. “The poor man, I don’t know how much he can take.”

“Don’t listen to him,” Alucard assured Soma. “I cannot abdicate, even if I could.”

“I abdicate,” Soma announced.

“Alucard,” Death said, shuffling and drawing a card. “You’re a hard man to break, as always.” His eye sockets lit up. “But this sacrifice might finally prove a challenge for you. It’s a _rare_ card.”

“Get on with it.”

“Your mother, Alucard. Five hundred years dead and buried, was it? I take it you still remember her fondly.”

For the first time playing this game, Alucard was truly afraid. “You wish me to sacrifice…”

“Those cherished, painful memories of her.” Death snapped his fingers. “It will be as if she never existed. Will you pursue, Alucard?”

Alucard’s mother, Lisa. The woman who had loved Dracula, the woman who had seen humanity in the evilest creature to walk the earth, who had raised a son with him, who had, albeit briefly, turned this very castle into a home.

“As far as you will remember, you will have been raised by a single father,” Death continued, laying out the terms of the sacrifice.

“I may be a staunch supporter of the traditional family,” Graham told Alucard. “But there is no shame in being raised by a single parent.”

Chara would have butted in, but even they had fallen silent, perhaps pondering how horrible it would be were they to be forced to sacrifice their memory of such a cherished person.

Quick-witted, studious, kindly, and caring, Lisa Fahrenheit had cared for all she met—even those who would turn on her. After years of serving a small village as their physician (using the technology made available to her through Dracula’s magical castle), she had been branded a witch and burned at the stake.

Alucard had been there, Alucard as he had been before he’d even taken the name “Alucard,” and when he dwelt on that day he could still see the plumes of smoke, smell the scent of roasting wood as the fire crept near his mother’s helpless body and the stench of cooked flesh joined it, feel the windswept embers on his skin.

It would have been trivial for Alucard to butcher the village and save his mother. His father would have done the same.

But Lisa’s dying words stayed his hand.

“ _Do not hate humans. If you cannot live with them, then at least do them no harm.”_

Alucard had taken those words to heart. His father had not. Lisa’s death had spurred Dracula to take revenge on humanity, when before he had simply been content to leave the human race alone—as it spurred Alucard to defy him to the bitter end.

Were he to forget her face, her voice, her kind example, her dying words—what kind of person would Alucard become? A man like his father, perhaps: ruthless and evil, unmoored from any moral compass save for the dictates of his violent whims. He could not bear to think of it. “I cannot.”

Death grinned a death’s-head rictus. “Then you abdicate.”

Graham shook his head. “Oh, Alucard, don’t do _that.”_ He gestured to Chara’s podium. “What would your new friend think of that?”

Alucard took a deep breath and tried to calm himself. “I do not abdicate.” Alucard struggled with his hand, but whatever held it to the podium dug in its metaphorical heels. Was the rule about forfeiting a lie? Were you expected to play this game until it killed you?

 _I think I understand this game now,_ Alucard thought. _This is a proving ground for the true successor to Dracula. The true successor is willing to give up everything, not just his body—his personality, his past, his friends—and render himself an empty vessel for Dracula’s powers. But he who falters—he who cannot give up his pride or his vanity or his compassion, or he who is human enough to refuse to step over his family and friends in the pursuit of power—is unfit to be the Dark Lord._

Alucard cast a glance over at Graham, who took in the whole scene with the expression of a child who’d just thought of a very funny joke but didn’t want to share it. _This man is the only one among us whose soul is empty enough already to win,_ Alucard thought. _Heaven help us._

“Alucard, make your decision before I make it for you,” Death chided.

“I forfeit!” Alucard cried out as one million needle teeth dug into his palm.

“Your hand is still attached to the podium,” Death pointed out. “That’s not a forfeit.”

“I… I…” He kept pulling, but his hand stuck fast, and the serpent only let him pull his left arm so far. But if only he still had his sword, or even a pen knife—he could have severed his right hand or at least a finger.

“ _What is your decision, Alucard?”_ Death roared.

Alucard felt himself growing weaker. The harder he struggled, the more the leech-like entity imprisoning him drained from him. His legs buckled. His knees gave out. He collapsed, clinging to the podium for support. “Death…” he panted. “Listen to me, Death! _I abdicate!”_

With that single word, silence filled the room.

And suddenly, Alucard was wracked with pain, searing through his flesh. His spine arched, his neck snapped backward, his teeth clenched and ground against one another, and he screamed in agony as a sensation like a thousand infinitely sharp knives raked across his body. His brain was aflame—every single survival instinct honed over billions of years of evolution from the very first single-celled organism screamed out, all at once, and at its loudest possible volume before they were quieted all at once, their deafening cacophony replaced by a cold and all-encompassing sense of doom.

And as Alucard’s hand slipped off the podium and his limp and lifeless body crumpled to the floor, silence filled the room yet again.

–

Soma watched what was left of Alucard slump over his podium and slide off of it onto the ground like a marionette with its strings cut, and as a hushed silence fell over the room, he felt as though he too had been struck dead.

It wasn’t a fair turn of events by any stretch of the imagination—and that’s when the full force of the realization hit Soma, a realization that had started percolating in the back of his mind during the first round.

This was not a game—this was a torture device.

This was a locked room in which four people would enter, and three would commit suicide, with the last one to die dying the slowest, most painful, most agonizing death of the three.

Soma suppressed the violent shudder that ran down his spine. He’d seen death before. He’d killed monsters by the dozen here. But he’d never been responsible for the death of a _friend._ Alucard had _saved_ him, saved him several times over, had guided him, and this— _this_ was how Soma had repaid him? By forcing him to die?

Death clapped. “There goes our first contestant! Everybody, give Alucard a big hand!”

Soma’s hands shook; he lowered his head, body wracked with tremors, scarcely able to see his podium through the haze of tears. He could hardly breathe. The strange reptilian rope knotted across his left wrist slithered around, its tiny scales pricking his skin and drawing little dots of blood. King Asriel had been right. _I should have_ _stayed behind_ _._ _I don’t belong here._ He glanced back at Mina, still imprisoned in the magical cage with only room to stand. She pounded on the invisible walls holding her in place, still silently shouting Soma’s name.

He’d been close to death before—but never like this. All those times in the castle—fighting crabs and giants and Nazis—he’d had a fighting chance. Here—here, in this demented game show of all places—if his number came up, he wouldn’t even be able to resist. _I have to get out of here._

“Chara, you’re up next.” Death drew two more cards. “I hope you don’t plan on abdicating this round.”

Soma wiped his eyes as best he could with one hand stuck to the podium and the other tied to a serpent, and he saw Chara and saw their body trembling, not with sadness, but with fury, the occasionally righteous, always self-righteous fury they carried in their body eternally like the flame of an Olympic torch.

“Don’t you worry your pretty little head,” Graham needled Chara. “You’ll be reunited with your lover soon enough.”

Chara slowly turned their head to face Graham, and if looks could kill, the mad priest would be dead a hundred times over.

“What?” Graham asked. “I’ve seen the, ahem, _bedroom eyes_ you’ve been flashing your tall, dark, and handsome friend. Hurry up and abdicate. Run to him.” A gleeful chuckle bubbled through his voice. “You can consummate your union in Hell!”

Chara looked Death right in the eye sockets. “Whatever sacrifice you’ve drawn for me, Death, I will accept it.” They raised their clenched left fist as high as they could; Soma could see rivulets of blood trickle through their fingers and drip down their wrist, over their snake’s lithe and shimmering body. “I’ll carry out Alucard’s will to the bitter end.”

Death drew another card from his black deck. “You are going to sacrifice…” he paused. “Are you sure about this?”

“You are trying my patience, Death,” Chara snarled. Their brow was damp with sweat—from pain, exhaustion, or fear, Soma didn’t know. “The sooner you cease your babbling, the sooner I can have you fired!”

“Your right foot,” Death announced.

“Take it.”

Instantly, Chara stumbled and fell, crying out in pain. Blood pooled from their severed ankle onto the floor. With their hands still bound, one to the serpent and one to the handprint, they pushed themselves up and hunched over the top, leaning on the podium for support. “Is that all you’ve got?”

Death re-shuffled and drew one more card. “Graham, will you—”

“Abdicate.”

Death nodded. “As I thought. Soma?”

He’d nearly forgotten he was still part of the game. “Y-yes?” Soma stammered.

“Do you need a time-out? You seem distressed.” Death laughed. “Ready for your next sacrifice?”

Soma closed his eyes and took a deep breath. This was too much. Fighting he could handle, but this?

He went into his mental locus, his imagined library with his collection of souls. The dusty, grand library he’d built up in his mind was a welcome respite from the eye-searing whiteness of the game floor. He knelt down and inspected his treasures—somewhere on these shelves, there had to be a soul that would conjure a knife he could use to cut himself free.

But what could Soma do with a knife? He could cut the snake binding his left wrist, or cut off a finger from his right hand and forfeit… but what _good_ would that do? Would there be punishment—like what happened to Alucard, instant death, impossible to defend against—if he tried to free Chara as well? If he were responsible for Chara’s death, as well as Alucard’s, how would he live with himself? What would he tell Asriel? _Sorry, Your Highness, I let your sibling die. But think about it, they were an asshole_ _and a murderer_ _, after all…_

At the very least, he decided, he might be able to conjure a weapon and throw it at Graham. If he were lucky, he might get the sick bastard square in the throat. _You could take my sword away,_ _but I am_ never _without a weapon._

There. He reached out for the soul of a knife-throwing butcher ghoul he’d slain in battle—that would do it. But as his hand closed around the flask he’d stuck the oily red soul in, a whip of chains lashed out, stinging his hand and forcing Soma to stumble back. Grimy black chains wrapped tight around the shelf, leaving barely a gap between them, and clasped by a padlock with a grinning death’s-head sculpted into it. The lock’s eyes glowed a foggy red.

“ _Ah-ah-ah, Soma Cruz. That’s against the rules.”_

Soma’s eyes snapped open, and he was back at the podium. _Shit._

“That was very naughty of you, Soma,” Death chided him. “I had a much easier sacrifice lined up for you, but in light of your behavior… You care about your friends, don’t you?”

Soma felt a pit open up in his stomach.

“Pursue for this round, and a dear friend of yours will lose a close, beloved family member.”

“A—A _dear friend?”_ Soma asked. He looked back at Mina. She stood in the cage, mouth agape. “I… I…”

 _A close, beloved family member._ Who could it be but one of Mina’s parents? Soma had brought so much pain and hardship to Mina already—he couldn’t bring himself to inflict more.

“I can’t do that to Mina!” he protested.

“Then you abdicate?” Death cocked his head.

“ _Soma!”_ Chara hissed. _“If you’re going to force your mother to bury her son, do it for a nobler cause than a game show!”_

“I don’t recall,” drawled Graham, “Death saying it would be _her,_ Soma.”

“I don’t _have_ any other friends,” Soma spat at him. He looked back at Mina again.

In tears, Mina slowly and somberly nodded and mouthed, _do it._

“ _Why?”_ Soma asked.

Mina was unable to respond from behind the bars imprisoning her.

“While we’re young, Soma?” Graham needled.

Soma looked Death in the eye sockets. “I pursue.” He choked the words out. They felt vile and rancid as they left Soma’s tongue. _God, whatever you are,_ _wherever you are,_ _if you even exist,_ _have mercy on my soul._

Death turned back to the leftmost podium. “Chara?”

“I abdicate.”

“Graham, you must sacrifice… half your lung capacity.”

Graham sighed. “I suppose I must… I pursue.”

At this injustice, this indignity, Soma lost it. “Hey, what kind of crooked show is this, you undead son of a bitch!?” he shouted at Death so hard his voice grew hoarse. “What the hell kind of sacrifice is ‘half your lung capacity’ _after_ _what I just did to Mina_ _!”_

“It’s all in the luck of the draw,” Death replied, lazily shuffling the deck of black cards.

“The hell it is!” Chara spat. “You’ve stacked the deck, haven’t you?”

Death drew himself up to his full height, swirling his ornate cloak around himself, and jabbed a bony finger in Chara’s direction. “How dare you accuse me of impropriety! Death does not play favorites!”

Graham chuckled. “Never mind these sore losers, Death. Go on. Have yourself a ball.”

 _We’re trapped in a game with Death,_ Soma thought, _and he wants to kill us. Go figure._

Death drew another card. “Soma…”

“ _Will you drop the pretense already?”_ Chara screamed. _“_ You’re nothing but a craven, gutless, amoral freak in a Halloween costume—No sense of _justice_ , or of _righteousness_ , or—or of… of…”

“Quiet yourself,” Death bellowed, “or the next sacrifice will be your tongue, whelp!”

“ _And I would gladly pay that price!”_ Chara flashed a quick wink at Soma before unloading the full force of their anger onto Death. “I may have been king once, but I was small in a world of giants and tyrants—something your type can never understand! I spoke truth to power, and I stood up for what I believed in, and I _suffered_ for it, and I _burned_ for it, and I did it again and again, and I’ll do it again because _it_ _was_ _always_ _the_ _right_ _thing to do_ _!_ _”_

While Chara went on their tirade, Soma felt something drop into his left palm. He looked down and saw, in his hand, a patch of shimmering heat haze coalesce into an ornate, almost-completely-transparent knife, faint white lines tracing ghostly contours around invisible air.

Chara had conjured it with their magic, levitated it through the air, behind Graham’s back, and handed it to Soma—all the while using their outburst to distract the game’s demented master.

Soma took the knife, holding it awkwardly in his left hand, with the blade facing inward. He sawed back and forth across the serpentine handcuff’s body, contorting his wrist painfully with every stroke. The snake writhed and tightened against his wrist as silvery, mercury-like fluid poured from its torn flesh, but eventually, it went limp, uncurled itself from Soma’s wrist, and flopped to the ground.

Soma watched as the tail hit the ground and coiled around the floor, and kept coiling, and kept coiling—he had no idea the serpent had been so long. Its width gradually increased, and after what felt like minutes (Chara’s angry ranting filling his ears all the while) the head popped out of the hole in the podium—not a snake’s head, but more like a leech, with a gaping silver dollar-sized mouth ringed with tiny needle teeth. Soma realized that his right hand was no longer stuck to the handprint in the podium—this leech-snake thing had been holding him down the whole time. He didn’t much relish the thought of seeing what the mark it had left by sucking on his palm looked like.

Graham glanced at Soma, who quickly dragged the leech-snake’s corpse out of sight with his foot and tried to pretend that his hands were still bound. Graham rolled his eyes and made an obscene gesture in Chara’s direction.

“You want Graham to win— _why?”_ Chara snarled. “Because you two are alike: You have no values! Because you two deserve each other! You are sadistic _swine_ who only care about hurting people who can’t fight back! Vultures! Buzzards! Hyenas! There is _nobility,_ Death, although I hardly expect your ilk to comprehend it, in standing up for righteousness even if it only brings you suffering, even if the world will surely strike you down for it!”

“The _mouth_ on this one,” Graham smirked.

Death tapped on his bench, bored out of his skull, as Chara wound down. “Are you finished with your filibuster, Chara?”

Chara gasped, their voice hoarse and raspy. “Yes. Yes, I am.”

“Oh, good. Soma, your next sacrifice is half your friend Mina’s lifespan.” Death seemed almost disinterested.

Mina, again? Had Death taken a particular interest in torturing her? “What do you mean, _half_ her lifespan?” Soma asked.

Death shrugged. “She’ll only live to be forty-five, max.”

“Oh, there’s quite an easy loophole to this, Soma,” said Graham. “She’ll likely be dead in a few hours anyway, so why not take the sacrifice?”

 _I can abdicate here,_ Soma thought, _but if I do, then Chara can’t, and Graham can get out of yet another sacrifice._ Chara was being run ragged—their breath was short and labored, their eyes bloodshot, and propping themselves up to make up for the foot they’d given up was taking its toll on their arms and shoulders. It wasn’t just the speech or the combined weight of so many things they’d given up. Conjuring the knife, let alone floating it over to Soma, had taken quite a bit of their stamina as well. _Chara can’t handle any more sacrifices._

 _But…_ Soma glanced back at Mina, at her wide and frightened eyes. He couldn’t do _that_ to her. Not after everything he’d already done.

“I’m waiting, Soma,” Death chided him. “Pursue or abdicate?”

“Or would you like to make an impassioned speech of your own?” Graham asked.

Soma had figured out what Chara was planning: he knew now _why_ Chara had given him the knife. If he dropped out by removing his hand from the podium, leaving only Graham and Chara, one of the two contestants could abdicate in every round, trapping the other and forcing them to undergo every sacrifice asked of them until they died or became… whatever Death considered “unfit to play.” If Soma abdicated this round, then forfeited, Graham would be able to abdicate on every turn, forcing Chara to sacrifice themselves to death. But if he merely forfeited, then Chara would be free to abdicate, and they could wait until kingdom come to whittle Graham away.

Surely Chara had realized this, and despite the massive injuries they’d sustained and all they’d lost, they wanted the satisfaction of killing Graham all to themselves.

“Well, Soma Cruz?” Death tapped his bony wrist where a wristwatch would be. “Have you figured out how much your dear friend’s life is worth? Oh, and keep in mind, you could easily just abdicate this turn.”

Soma felt sweat dampen his collar. Was it just him, or was it getting hotter in here? “I’m not going to abdicate.”

Graham laughed. “You hear that, dear Mina? Look at how easily your friend throws your life away!”

“Shut up, Graham,” Soma growled.

Death perked up. “Then you pursue?”

Soma shook his head. “I won’t pursue, either.” He raised both hands above his head. “I forfeit, Death.”

Chara began to laugh like a hyena as Death and Graham looked on, dumbfounded. Tears of mirth streamed down their face as Death’s jaw dropped. “I believe my friend Soma is free to go,” they told Death, fighting their way through their laughter, “and I believe that makes it my turn.”

Death slammed his fist on the table, shaking it. He snapped his fingers, and in an instant, Soma was on the other side of the door in the stairwell outside, the massive room spinning around him as he stumbled and fell to the floor.

Soma fell onto his hands and knees and vomited onto the floor, hot bile pouring through his throat and searing his mouth and nose. He coughed, spat out a few stragglers, and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. It was all up to Chara now—to stop Graham and keep Mina safe.

Soma groaned. Chara was 0-2 against Graham so far. They were doomed.

“ _Soma!”_ Asriel ran into the heart chamber. Captain Undyne, Yoko, Hammer, and Asriel’s newest groupie followed in his wake. _“Are you all right?”_ he called out.

“I’m fine!” he called back.

Asriel scaled the staircase and helped Soma to his feet. His fur was singed. A ragged cloth wrapped around his head covered his blind eye, and he panted like he’d just run a decathlon. But despite it all the king still gave off a warm smile as he propped Soma up and held him against the greatcoat he’d draped over his shoulders. “You sure you’re all right, son?”

“Yeah, yeah, I’m just a little, uh—‘ _son?’”_

Asriel stiffened. “I-I just meant it colloquially. If it bothered you, I—”

Soma coughed. “No, sorry, Your Highness. It was just kind of funny.”

“Where are the others? Where’s Chara?” Asriel rested a hand on the carvings adorning the castle’s heart. “Are they in here?”

“Yeah.” Soma picked up the Claimh Solais where he’d been forced to leave it behind. “Mina, too. And they’re in trouble.”

Asriel tried the doorknob, and finding it locked tight no matter how hard he rattled it, tried cutting the door down as well. Sparks cascaded through the air as Asriel broke blade after blade against the impervious door.

“It won’t work,” Soma told him. “There’s some kind of seal in place, I think—at least until the game is finished.”

“‘Game?’”

Soma tried his best to explain the situation to Asriel as briefly as possible.

“Then how do we get in?”

“We have to stop the game. And the only way to do that is by freeing the contestants…” Soma thought for a while. Where had those strange leech-snakes come from… and why did he feel like he’d seen them before? “We don’t get in. We get _under.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Stage one of the final boss battle and you've already lost your strongest party member!


	36. Graham's Game, Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, the game is won.

Back in the game, Chara tapped on their podium. “Ahem. Death. What’s my sacrifice this time?”

Death’s shoulders slumped. “You’re just going to abdicate, aren’t you?”

“Who knows? It’s the lightning round.” Chara’s eyes sparkled through their weariness. “Anything,” they said, propping themselves up as best they could against the podium, “can happen.”

“That’s right. Chara, you sacrifice your—”

Through fits of manic laughter, Chara managed to squeak out, “Abdicate!”

Death was taken aback. “Oh, my. Are you _sure_ about that?”

Chara’s grin shrank by a few molars. Something was wrong. Something they hadn’t foreseen. Death’s cryptic response could only mean that somehow, a wrench had been thrown in their gears. They tried to maintain their composure. “Wh—what do you mean?”

“Recall the rules,” Death said, producing a long, weathered scroll and unrolling it. “I said, and I quote, ‘You can move onto the next round by abdicating—unless the player to your left—well, your right in this case—has already refused to make their sacrifice. In that case, abdicating will kill you.’ Do you see it?”

Chara saw it, but they didn’t want to believe it. They had gotten it wrong—misinterpreted the rules—and so had Soma.

Beside Chara, Graham chuckled. Chara couldn’t see the mad priest’s face, though—outside of a several-foot radius, the world turned into a blurry, muddy mess of colors.

 _I need to forfeit,_ Chara thought, _but then Graham would go on ahead to the throne room. I can’t let that happen!_ But the question remained: how could Chara possibly win this game now? The tables had turned—and Chara knew for sure that the abject feeling of hopelessness filling their body was the same feeling they’d aimed to inspire in Graham.

Chara conjured another invisible knife with some of the dregs of magic energy left in their body, held it with the blade pointing toward them in their left hand, as Soma had done, and started to work on the snake binding their wrist.

“Are you ready for your sacrifice, Chara?” Death asked.

–

Soma scaled the spiral staircase to the floor below, leaping down the stairs three steps at a time, and rushed the door leading to the room below Death’s torture chamber, with Asriel in hot pursuit. He struggled with the doorknob for a bit, then finally decided to cut the door down, slicing with the Claimh Solais through the wood as if it were butter. The two of them stepped into the room and looked up at the ceiling. The noose-like cables that had hung there had all vanished—replaced by a writing mess of silvery snakes covering the ceiling, somehow remaining stuck to it as if gravity had been turned upside-down.

Soma walked in and looked up, the Claimh Solais in his hand casting a bluish light across the room, and his face fell. “Shit. Which one’s Chara’s?” He stepped into the room.

The floor shook, and Asriel had little time to grab Soma by the collar and yank him back before the rotting wooden floorboards collapsed, revealing the gaping, cavernous silvery gullet of a massive leech-like creature whose circumference nearly matched the perimeter of the floor. Its maw was ringed with rows upon rows of teeth, each row rotating in the opposite direction—one layer clockwise, one counterclockwise—like the teeth on a drill. Deep in the beast’s stomach, a sickly green light shone. The walls crumbled as well, and thin sheets of plaster fell away into the leech-beast’s mouth, revealing more snakes writhing within. It looked like the mass of snakes all came from the creature, radiating like tendrils.

And with a thousand tiny shrieks, the tendrils lifted off the walls and snaked through the air at the intruders.

–

Chara fumbled with their knife. The serpent tightened its grip on their hand, digging into their wrist until it hurt as Chara drew blood. “Bring it on.” Hopefully, the sacrifice wouldn’t be so debilitating as to prevent them from freeing themselves…

“Very well. Your next sacrifice is…” Death paused for dramatic effect. “Your left index and middle finger.”

Chara blanched, and Graham let out a sharp bark of laughter.

“You didn’t think I didn’t know, did you?” Death laughed derisively. “It was obvious that Soma had hidden away a knife—which he had to get from _somebody,_ a certain _somebody_ capable of sneaking a weapon past me _—_ and used it to cut away the leech-snake. And the only hand he could have used to do so was his left…”

Chara redoubled their efforts to saw off the creature binding them to the podium, but the snake fought back. They gritted their teeth. _Not now… not like this…_

“Very interesting, though,” Death remarked. “Mr. Cruz had an obvious ‘tell’ for when he was making use of one of the souls he’d taken. He would close his eyes. You, though… you had quite a poker face.” He cleared his throat.

The knife slipped out of Chara’s hand and fell to the floor, with only a shallow wound made on the snake. Chara swore. They tried to curl their fingers around and grab at the snake, but of course, that was impossible unless they could bend their wrist at an acute angle (they couldn’t).

There had to be another way. Some other way they could use their powers…

Chara relented. “Take them! I pursue!” they shouted. And one by one, almost painlessly, the two fingers in question on their left hand fell off, and droplets of blood splattered on the floor.

“And Graham…?”

“I abdicate, of course,” said Graham, with a slimy, ear-to-ear smile Chara couldn’t _see_ but they could _hear_ in his voice.

“Chara, your next sacrifice is the hearing in your right ear.”

“Take it.” Chara stumbled on their one remaining foot, slipped on a patch of their own blood, and collapsed to their knees, their cheek colliding hard with the edge of their podium. As they forced themselves up, there was a _pop_ in their right ear, and then… the world, Graham’s derisive laughter to their right especially, grew just a little quieter and muffled.

“I abdicate,” Graham said. “Chara, how are you holding up?”

“I’m not giving up…” Chara growled. “I don’t give up… and I’m not afraid to die.” Chara hoisted themselves up, clinging to the podium like a shipwrecked sailor to a piece of driftwood.

They flared out their aura, trying to fill the room with an invisible fire. The more they extended what little magic they had left, the weaker the fire became until it was merely hot air—but just as they’d hoped, the temperature of the room was beginning to rise.

“You should be,” Graham said.

Death laughed. “Chara, your next sacrifice is…”

–

Asriel incinerated a patch of leech-snakes with a fireball, revealing a bare but scorched patch of ceiling.

“Did you get it?” Soma asked as his blade neatly severed the heads of a cluster of long, thin snakes that lashed out at him. The severed necks spewed silver blood as the decapitated tendrils lashed across the room. One hit Soma across the face, leaving a nasty welt on his cheek and drawing blood.

The bare patch of ceiling quickly filled in with replacement snakes. “No clue,” Asriel shouted back. He crept along the edge of the giant leech’s mouth on the tiny bits of wooden planks that comprised what was left of the floor and shot at the ceiling again. Again, the charred bits of leech-snake fell from the ceiling, but more filled the gaps. “There’s too much in the way.”

Soma glanced down at the giant leech’s gullet. He was going to _hate_ what he was about to do. “I’ll take care of it.”

“You’ll _what?”_

“I’ll kill the big guy. You deal with the small fries if you want.” Soma took a few steps back, ran into the room, and leaped across the floor, down into the belly of the beast, sword held high. As he fell, past rows of spinning teeth, each one the length of his forearm, a foul wind flew past him, carrying with it the stench of thousands of rotting corpses.

This might have been a bad idea—but at least he’d given up part of his sense of smell.

As he fell deeper, the green light intensified, and Soma saw, through a haze of heat, a pulsating green heart, each artery leading from it pulsing with the two-step beat of a massive circulatory system. A lattice of plaque-yellow bones cradled the heart, and beneath it was a lake of noxious yellow-green stomach acids, unctuous oil-slick patches floating around the surface along with bits of undigested leather and bone.

He shifted into bat form for just a few seconds to adjust his trajectory and shifted out. The sudden shifts in perspective drove an iron spike through his brain and made his eyes water, but now he was directly on top of the leech-beast’s heart.

At least, until a leech-snake from outside the beast’s maw curled around his wrist and jerked him away from the heart, leaving him to dangle over the acid lake. Soma lashed out with his sword and cut through the snake as if it were butter, freeing himself, but sending him into the pit.

Soma fell past the heart and stabbed with his sword, the blade of the Claimh Solais sinking into the bony ribcage wrapped around the heart. He dangled mere feet above the creature’s stomach. He could feel the hair on his chin sizzling.

He grabbed at one of the curved ribs guarding the heart, but his fingers slipped off and came away coated with sticky mucus. Of course—a lining of mucus prevented the stomach from digesting itself, and if your heart was in your stomach, you needed _something_ to keep each meal from giving you heartburn.

Needle teeth embedded in the stomach walls shot out like blowdarts in some Hollywood version of an Aztec ruin, whizzing past Soma. If he fell into the acid, he was done for—and he didn’t relish getting turned into a human pincushion either.

Soma conjured a javelin from the soul he’d taken of the flying skeleton, dug it into a gap in the heart’s bony armor, and pulled the Claimh Solais out. The sword’s holy blade steamed as the blood and ichor from the evil creature bubbled and boiled off of it.

Soma leveraged his javelin to vault himself up, a few teeth hitting him in the back as he swung through the air and pinning his coat to his back. They hurt like the dickens, but Soma gritted his teeth and dealt with it as he landed on top of the heart. Each beat of the heart rattled his eardrums. He slid off the slimy, mucus-covered surface, but dug his fingers in with a squelch that in a less life-threatening situation might’ve been satisfying.

More leech-snakes poured from outside the creature’s mouth and snaked down its gullet. Soma fended them off as the lashed out at him, cursing all the while. Everything that slowed him down was a nail in Chara’s coffin, and sure, Soma had his _issues_ with that narcissistic megalomaniac, as they had their issues with him, but he couldn’t have their blood on his hands. And besides, he kind of owed them now.

Soma raised the Claimh Solais high and prepared to drive it into the beast’s heart, digging his heels into the slimy surface of the beating heart, but the lithe, thin leech-snakes took their opportunity to wrap around his arms and legs, dragging him away. One wrapped around his neck and began to squeeze; others placed their lamprey mouths up to his neck, breaking his skin with their needle teeth, and began to suck at his blood. Soma felt his lungs shrivel and panicked as a black void began to crowd the edges of his vision.

Soma’s fingers grew weak, and the Claimh Solais slipped out of his hand as the beast’s tendrils squeezed the life from his body.

And then the beast’s slavering gullet was rocked by a tremendous explosion and a white figure flew by, snatching Soma’s sword out of the air and cutting him free, and then slicing through the beast’s heart. Silvery blood spewed out of the ruptured ventricle, steaming and bubbling as it hit the stomach acids below.

Asriel landed atop the quivering heart and grabbed Soma by the arm, the shining blue-white blade of the Claimh Solais in his other hand. He was straddling his partisan like a witch’s broomstick. “Grab on.”

Before Soma could lose his balance atop the convulsing heart of the beast, he grabbed hold of the king, wrapping his arms around his chest. Asriel grabbed the spear shaft, pulled up, and flew out of the creature’s stomach as the beast’s esophageal lining quivered and shuddered in its death throes.

The two of them flew out of the giant leech’s mouth, back into the room, and as Asriel slowed his ascent and righted the makeshift broomstick, Soma saw the vine-like leech-snakes covering the ceiling wither away and draw back, revealing three snakes, unconnected to the freshly-slain beast, dangling from the ceiling.

Asriel cut the three snakes in half, letting their halves dangle and spew mercury-colored blood like water from a garden hose, and touched down outside the room.

Soma took a long, deep breath, filling his lungs with the castle’s relatively-fresh air. “H-how long have you been able to do _that?”_ he panted.

Asriel dismissed the partisan, letting it vanish in a shower of sparks. “Before you get any ideas, it’s not easy.” He handed the Claimh Solais back to Soma, who eagerly took it and planted it in the staircase, leaning against its hilt as he gasped for air. “D-did you _turn into a bat_ back there?”

“Before you get any ideas,” Soma replied, nursing his aching head, “it’s not easy.”

–

“Take its speech away next,” Graham suggested to Death. “Pluck out the wretch’s tongue. I think it wants to make another soliloquy.” At the podium to his left, Chara clung to the stone column with a mangled hand, gasping for air. They could barely see anything in front of their nose with any degree of clarity—the priest to their side was just a white blur moving against another white blur. Sweat coated Chara’s brow, dripping into their eyes. They felt worse than they had after slugging it out with Asriel—and they hadn’t known it was even possible to feel worse than that.

“I quite like that, Graham,” Death said. “But I have something better. How about your vocabulary, Chara—say, twenty percent of it? No, thirty. All those ten-dollar words you love, and change.”

“How positively Orwellian.” Graham laughed. “It’s perfect!”

“I’d rather die.” With how awful they felt now, it seemed they might be quite close to death as it was already. The tables had turned on them so suddenly, so cruelly, that it seemed in itself just as much of a grievous injury as the loss of their foot, the loss of their fingers, the loss of their sight.

“An abdication, is it?”

“I didn’t say that,” Chara choked out, sucking in a ragged breath. “I—I—I want to…”

“Death,” Graham called out, “I appreciate the mood it sets, but… could you perhaps turn down the heat?”

Chara grinned as sweat poured down their forehead, sticking their clothes to their skin. It was miserable and uncomfortable, but it would _work?_

“I hadn’t noticed,” Death remarked.

Chara began to laugh. “You’ve noticed, have you, Graham?” they rasped. “It’s gonna get hotter and hotter, as long as I live… What’s going to happen first, Graham? Will I sacrifice something that kills me? Or will the heat kill us both?”

“Death,” Graham gasped, “stop them! Take away their magic next, or something! Anything!”

“It’s all in the luck of the draw, Father Jones.” Death clucked his tongue. “My, my, this _is_ amusing.”

Spots began to dance in front of Chara’s eyes. If they could just hold on long enough…

“You really _aren’t_ afraid to die, are you, Chara Dreemurr?” Death asked.

“I’ve done it before. It only slowed me down.”

“How noble to give up one’s life to end another’s,” Death mused. “An entirely altruistic gesture. You serve to reap no benefits of it. How _unlike_ you.”

“Excuse me?” Graham called out, his voice quavering. The heat was getting to be too much for him. It would only be a few more minutes… “Death! Chara has yet to make their decision! Punish them or something!”

“But I am curious,” said Death, “if you’ve realized that young Miss Hakuba, too, will die… It seems you have _two_ sacrifices this round. Make them,” Death hissed. “Make them in fifteen seconds.”

There are some times when one plays a game, and one realizes far too late that they had no chance of winning from the opening move. Chara had lost a long, long time ago—and every turn since then had been a mere formality.

“Ten…”

They knew this feeling, this anguishing, heart-rending despair. They had felt it over and over again, inevitably, like the midnight chiming of a grandfather clock, and they had hoped, however foolishly, that they would never feel that way again.

Two lives to save a kingdom. It was a trade-off Chara should have been able to live with.

“Five…”

_Why can’t I win? Why can’t I win even once? Why does fate have to keep conspiring against me like this?_

“Three… two…”

And suddenly, miraculously, the sucking mouth latched onto Chara’s right hand fell away, and they slipped off the podium, lying in an exhausted heap on the floor. Their magic dispersed, and as the temperature in the room began to drop, cool air prickled their skin.

They were free now. They’d wanted so badly to triumph, but this—this was better than death. “I forfeit,” they gasped.

“Well, then…” Death began to clap. “Congratulations, Father Graham Jones, on winning the throne of Lord Dracula! Step right this way, sir—your prize awaits…”

Chara heard Graham’s footsteps draw closer, and the priest grabbed them by the collar and lifted them up. Graham’s face, just a blur at first, came into sharp focus as he brought his face closer to Chara’s—intimately close. Graham’s violet eyes bored into Chara’s. _“_ _If you’d just surrendered to me earlier,_ _”_ he whispered, _“you would be so much happier now. But don’t expect me to offer you that chance again.”_

He dropped Chara, let their body crumple against the floor, and walked away, his footsteps growing quieter and softer until Chara could no longer hear them at all.

Chara lay there on the floor, bloody and mutilated, beaten and humiliated, no longer sure if they were alive or dead anymore.

They could feel themselves being turned onto their back by a pair of hands, and there was a face floating in front of Chara’s, blurred and indistinct through the eyes they’d foolishly sacrificed. They thought they could make out a familiar face from the blurs—

Frisk, it was Frisk! And if _they_ were here… then this could only be the end.

Would their death have accomplished anything? Was it a culmination of their life’s work? Did it do them poetic justice?

Would Frisk be happy to see them as they were now? No, Frisk _couldn’t_ be here for them. But there they were.

Chara reached out with a trembling hand, brushed their soft cheek, struggled to crack open their lips, longing to greet them like the old friend they were… _“Frisk…_ _”_

And the vision disappeared. The phantom face faded away, superimposed for a brief instant on a girl with red hair and kind, soft eyes.

“… _Mina?”_

Chara glanced around the room, squinting. The room was empty—save for a dark blur on the floor that was most likely Alucard. Mina alone had come to Chara’s side—despite the fact that they were apparently one of the few people in the world she disliked. _Not even Asriel? Where is he? Why isn’t he here with me?_

Mina helped Chara sit up. _“Chara-san. Daijobudesu ka?”_

“Beg your pardon?”

Mina repeated herself in English. “A-are you okay?”

Chara nodded weakly. “Why are you…”

“Because of you…” Mina paused. “Thank you. Thank you for helping Soma.”

 _Thank you._ That sounded like high praise now.

She helped Chara up, propping them up at their side as Chara tried to set their right foot down and found nothing but air. They could still _feel_ their foot, and could swear they could almost even wiggle their toes—but it was only a phantom, and it passed through the floor just like a phantom would. Chara stumbled.

 _I’ve crippled myself. I can hardly see. My hearing in one ear is shot._ Chara hopped along with Mina as their crutch. Her ragged clothes were just as filthy and soaked with sweat as theirs. _Everything I’ve sacrificed. And none of it meant anything. Why did I even bother fighting?_

Graham. A new and terrible Dracula, one who could unite the world under an all-consuming cloud of darkness and subjugate the monstrous to his will. And the apocalypse Chara had struggled to avert, the future they had fought to prevent, would roll on—worse than they could imagine.

The door swung open.

“ _Mina!”_ That was Soma. _“I’m so sorry! Are you okay? Graham didn’t_ hurt _you, did he?”_

“ _No, no, I’m fine,”_ Mina assured him. _“All he did was leave…”_

“ _Chara!”_

Asriel swept Chara off their feet—or, rather, foot. Vertigo seized them and the world went black.

When they came to, Chara was lying on the floor. They felt something sharp prick the skin around their ankle and winced.

There was another pinprick and another. Chara jerked their leg, spasming in pain.

“Just _try_ to stay still, will you?” they heard Soma snap at them.

“What are you doing?” Chara asked. _What kind of torture_ _is_ _this?_

“Sewing your foot back on,” he said matter-of-factly. “And you’d better stop struggling if you don’t want me to put it on backward.”

“ _What?”_

“Don’t be too worried,” Asriel reassured them, patting their back. “He did it to his hand and he was fine. You’re gonna be all right, Chara.”

“Try to behave yourself,” said Soma, “and I’ll do your fingers, too.”

Chara relented and let their rival finish the impromptu operation on their foot and move onto their hand. Chara wiggled their foot. Yes—it was their _real_ foot, and miraculously, it responded to all of their commands. Their fingers came to life next.

“I don’t suppose you’ve got a soul in your collection,” Chara wondered aloud to Soma as they stood up and tested their reattached foot, “that can conjure prescription glasses?” The whole world was just a foggy mass of blurs to them now, although they could at least make out their hand in front of their face. Asriel kept a pair of steady hands on their shoulders as if he were teaching them to ride a bike.

“Thought you’d never ask for my help again,” Soma needled them. “Sorry, nope.”

“These might help.” Mina handed a pair of smudged, dirty glasses to Chara. Even with the lenses in the shape they were, scratched and dotted with specks of dirt, Chara could see the world behind them like a portal to another dimension: a window into a clear, sharp world.

Chara slipped the glasses on, and the world around them snapped into focus. The lenses weren’t perfect—Chara’s sight still wasn’t even close to par. But it was better than nothing. And they were shaped like little half-moons. Like Toriel’s reading glasses. It was a small comfort, but enough to make them smile. “What in the world were you doing with these, you little kleptomaniac?”

“I found them in the castle. I thought if I cleaned them up, my father might like them,” Mina explained. “He loves antiques, and his birthday is coming up…”

Chara ran their fingers—their miraculously restored fingers—over the hard edges of their lenses, reveling at their restored sight. They could see the red seams above their knuckles where Soma had reattached their two fingers ringed with flakes of crusted blood. “I won’t keep these, then.”

They took in the state of the game chamber. The room had reverted to its natural state: dark, dusty, and gloomy. Death was nowhere to be found. Alucard lay on the floor in a heap. The others who’d come along with Asriel filed into the room.

Chara stood over the limp form of the dhampyr and rolled him over onto his back. Alucard’s eyes were still open, staring blankly like— _like—_

They fell to their knees and drew Alucard’s eyes closed. He looked almost as if he were asleep, but still, Chara’s heart wrenched. For a man to die without his own face was to die without his dignity. _“_ _Not again,”_ they whispered to themselves.

_Not again._

Humanity. Always _taking_ and _taking_ and _taking_ from them, and _taking_ until there was nothing left to take and then finding something else to take. It was…

_Human nature._

Soma put a hand on their shoulder, wiping at his face with the hem of his ragged coat. “I’m sorry,” he muttered as Chara limped past him. “It’s all my fault.”

“He was like me,” Chara sniffled. “Do you understand?” They looked up at Soma. “You know what it’s like, too, don’t you?”

“What what’s like?”

Yoko nearly threw Chara across the room when she spied Alucard’s body, shouting out his name and shaking him by his ragged collar. She felt for a pulse. Nothing. She tried, with just one arm, to compress his chest, tearing off his shirt and laying bare his chest, revealing the eldritch seal seared over his heart. Nothing. “Hammer, Undyne, get over here, we can—”

“You’re too late,” Chara said. They had no choice but to say it.

Hammer knelt next to her and checked Alucard’s wrist. He let it flop to the floor. “I’m sorry. The dandy’s right, Yoko.”

Yoko’s eyes welled up. “It can’t be. He’s…”

Mina pulled herself away from Soma, knelt beside Yoko, and took her hand. “M-Miss Yoko, I’m so, so sorry…”

“This is bullshit!” Undyne pushed herself through the crowd that had gathered around Alucard’s body. She pressed her webbed, scaly hand against Alucard’s chest. “Guys like you aren’t supposed to drop dead like this! It’s embarrassing!” Electricity coursed through Alucard’s chest, causing his body to jerk and spasm. But despite his thrashing, there was no life left in him. “Come on! Get up! You’re too _cool_ to die like this!”

“Captain, please.” Asriel pulled her back up.

Yoko peered at the magic circle branded onto Alucard’s ashen chest, absentmindedly nibbling on her finger as she pondered the sigils inscribed on five equidistant points around the ring’s perimeter. Taking a small vial of blood and pouring it on the half-vampire’s ashen, corpse-like chest, Yoko went right to work, tracing a circle of her own on top of the seal, red on black. She started tracing symbols over the ones emblazoned on Alucard’s skin, then stopped, took a deep breath, closed her eyes, and got back to work.

The chamber had grown so quiet that the infinitesimally quiet scratching and scraping of microscopic germs on the walls were nearly audible. Although nearly nobody understood the point of the ritual occurring before their eyes, they all understood that whatever was being done required unbroken concentration.

Yoko drew the last of the sigils and the dead body underwent a startling transformation. Alucard the spidery G-man, Alucard the secret agent with hair as monochromatic as his choice in clothing, Alucard the man who stood out in any crowd but never seemed to leave an impression (like a true Man in Black), was gone.

Chara had often heard the expression that a person’s skin could radiate a healthy glow. In Alucard’s case, it was almost _literal._ In an instant, Alucard had gone from mildly unsettling to downright _unearthly._ And with that glow and his waist-length platinum-blonde hair splayed across the floor he looked like an elf straight out of Tolkien’s imagination.

But Alucard did not stir. The beautiful corpse was still, to Yoko’s dismay, nothing more than a corpse.

Yoko raised her hand to her mouth, choking back tears, and bit into it hard enough to draw blood. It poured down her wrist. While everyone else was shouting in alarm and trying to pull her away, thinking she’d gone mad, Yoko thrust her bloodied hand over Alucard’s open mouth. Salty tears streamed down her face. _“Take it! Take it, Alucard,_ _please,_ _I’ll give as much as you need if it’ll bring you_ _back! Alucard—_ _”_

 

_Alucard._

 

 

 

_Are you awake, Alucard?_

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

_Can you hear me? It’s me, Alucard…_


	37. Calling from Heaven

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, the losers lick their wounds.

Alucard woke up somewhere warm and cozy. At one side, he could hear the crackling of a roaring fire in a small, clean hearth. At the other side, the keening whistle of a tea kettle. He was lying on something soft and comfortable, more so than any bed he’d ever slept in (and Alucard had slept in many opulent beds throughout history). The blankets draped over him were heavy. His head sank into the pillow.

This place—wherever it was—felt wonderful. But Alucard struggled to remember how he’d gotten here. The last thing he remembered was—it was all fuzzy.

Dracula’s castle. A priest, a young punk, a half-vampire, and a socialist king walk into a…

It sounded like the setup to a bad joke.

Alucard cracked his eyes open. He was in a spacious modern apartment, lying on—no, not a bed, a couch. Between him and the fireplace was a glass coffee table covered with decorative candles (unlit, but covered in hardened wax drippings and sporting curled, blackened wicks) and a stack of well-read and thumbed-through back issues of _Scientific American._ A worn and dog-eared copy of _A Brief History of Time_ lay cracked open, its spine facing up.

A woman came around the couch and placed a steaming mug on the table beside Alucard. “I hope I did not wake you.” The corners of her mouth twitched upward. “It is so good to see you again, Alucard.”

Alucard looked at her and recognized her instantly. And yet it took entire seconds for the rest of his brain to catch up.

It was…

She was…

The woman before him, a woman with a careworn face and long, wavy wheat-gold hair curled and teased ever so slightly at the ends, was none other than Lisa Fahrenheit Tepes.

Alucard found himself reaching out to her. Lisa took his hand. Her hand was so soft and so warm compared to his. If she were a mere apparition, it was a very convincing one. To see her now, like this, unmarred by flame, like she had been before the people of her village had dragged her from her home and thrown her into the fire—for a long moment, Alucard was struck dumb.

_Mother._

What could _she_ possibly be doing in a place like this?

“Have you nothing to say, my son?” she asked.

Alucard hadn’t heard her voice in over five hundred years.

“Don’t overexert yourself. I imagine you’ve been through quite a lot.” Lisa gestured to the tea she’d set on the table. “Have some tea.”

As the fog began to clear from his mind, Alucard assessed his situation. This could be a dream or some other fugue state, and this vision standing before him could easily be a ghoul or faerie or even a succubus trying to ensnare him—they had tried such tactics against him before.

Then the memories came rushing back to him. The last thing he remembered now was the agonizing pain—and every scrap of life from every cell in his body being torn from him all at once.

Alucard was dead.

He sat up, letting the blanket pool around his feet, and took a sip of tea. Ginseng with honey, at just the perfect temperature. In fact, it was the most perfect cup of ginseng tea he’d ever drunk. It was the platonic ideal of ginseng tea. He almost couldn’t bear to swallow it.

“It is quite a lot to get used to at first,” Lisa told him.

Alucard choked down the tea. “We both are dead… so this is Heaven, is it not?” he asked, glancing yet again around the pristine home.

His mother nodded. “It is.”

Alucard smiled. He’d gone to Heaven. Never, not once in his centuries of living, had he thought that he, a being of darkness, the offspring of Dracula, the progeny of a cursed and unholy bloodline, would end up _here._ All the more reason for him to discount this as a freakish dream altogether.

He appraised his mother’s home. Books overflowed from the shelves braced against the walls. The kitchen had an island counter set in its center, pots and pans of various sizes and myriad ladles and other utensils dangling from the ceiling. Floor-to-ceiling windows formed one corner of the living room, gazing out on a thickly-forested skyline. It was a strange afterlife, oddly mundane and homely, and oddly modern for a woman born in the fifteenth century.

“I knew I would meet you here eventually, Alucard.” Lisa took a seat on the couch next to him.

“You knew I would keep throwing myself into danger. And eventually, it would get the best of me.”

“Nothing so morbid. I didn’t know if it would take centuries or millennia or eons, but such spans are trivial in the face of eternity.” Lisa laughed. “That said, I have kept abreast of your adventures.”

“There can hardly be that much to keep you entertained there,” Alucard muttered self-effacingly.

“And, of course, I’ve had plenty else to busy myself with these past centuries.” She thumbed through the stack of magazines on the table, ruffling the pages. “It never ends, history. We humans are always discovering new things, changing our ways, some for better, some for worse… there is never a dull moment. To say nothing of our vast advances in the art of medicine.” She grinned ear to ear. “A few decades ago I entertained a small crush on Doctor Jonas Salk.”

“Who?”

“You know, the polio vaccine.”

“What is polio?”

Lisa shook her head. “Oh, Alucard, you _must_ pay more attention to the world around you.”

She _was_ Alucard’s mother. A medical wunderkind born centuries too early. Alucard still had fond memories of being at her side when she’d run out of the castle’s laboratory holding some alchemical concoction and all but shouting _Eureka!_

“Drink your tea, Alucard,” Lisa told him. “You don’t want it to grow cold, do you? It won’t taste as good after you put it in the microwave.”

“Is that a joke, Mother?”

“Heavens, no. This may be paradise, but tea still grows cold, the fire still needs stoking, and you can still tear the pages of your favorite book if you turn them too eagerly.”

“Indeed? Sounds like a rather poor paradise.”

“I was disappointed at first,” Lisa told him, “but then I thought about it. Perhaps the world needs to be imperfect for us to truly enjoy it.”

Alucard finished the tea, set down the mug, and held his mother close. It had been so long since he had felt her touch, heard her voice as anything but phantoms in his memories. “I have… missed you, Mother.”

Lisa stroked his hair. It was only then that Alucard realized that the shell he’d been forced to wear was gone. He hadn't even realized it, but he’d felt lighter, freer— _himself._

“And I you, Alucard. But rest assured, you would not have wanted to have a window into my life here, as I have had into yours.”

“I beg to differ,” he replied, his heart aching.

“If the living could see their loved ones in heaven…” Lisa fell silent for a moment. “They would begin to envy the dead. Wouldn’t they?”

She made a good point.

“And honestly, you would find nothing to interest you if you _could_ look into heaven. Every day is the same here. I read, I cook, I study medicine, I try my best to understand quantum physics… You would bore yourself to death keeping tabs on me.” Lisa paused and brushed something out of Alucard’s eye. “Now, now. There is no need to cry in paradise.”

Had he been crying? Alucard hadn’t realized it.

“I know this must be quite a shock, and I know you must miss your friends terribly. But you will get used to it here. You’ll even have your own home soon enough.”

Alucard nearly laughed at the idea. But he could see it in his mind’s eye as clear as day. He would have a home filled with swords and books, and he could see his mother at any time he wished, and the friends he’d lost to time over five centuries of life, or unlife—he could see them, too. And in time, too, Julius and Yoko would join him here. Perhaps Alucard could even watch all of those movies Yoko kept telling him about.

Death… if it was like this, then it was not so bad.

“You so rarely smiled in life, Alucard. It is so good to see you smiling, even if it took you until now.”

The vision fled from Alucard’s mind, chased away as the sun would chase away fog, and the warm, comfortable feeling filling his chest turned cold. “I—I can’t stay here,” Alucard stammered, the images of his allies— _friends_ —flashing across his eyes in place of his thoughts of paradise. His friends—they all _needed_ him. “It cannot be my time.”

“I’m sorry, Alucard. I’m afraid even you cannot choose the hour in which you depart.” Lisa gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You’ve been so brave, and fought so valiantly. But I’m afraid your story ends here.”

“But—”

Lisa shook her head, patting his hand gently. “I understand. It is normal for spirits to resist at first when they pass on. But you have lived a rich, full life, and any mother would be proud to have a son like you. I like to think your father would be as well—you inherited all his best qualities. You’ve shed your mortal coil, Alucard. Let it go.”

Alucard stood up and drew his cloak about him. This _couldn’t_ be the end for him, he didn’t _belong_ here. “No. There _must_ be a way back!”

“Alucard, if you tear yourself away from here—if you force your spirit back to the mortal plane—you might _never_ be allowed to return.” Lisa took him by the shoulders, her gaze growing colder. “You won’t ever see me again. Is that what you want?”

“Unhand me!” Alucard pulled himself away from her. “My mother was the one who gave me _purpose._ My mother would understand what I must do. All this—” He gestured at his mother’s living quarters. “It is a lie, isn’t it?” He had been fooled yet again, he feared—but by whom, and for what purpose? He eyed what had seemed to be his mother with suspicion. “What is this? Why have you detained me so? Answer me!”

Lisa sighed. “You want the truth, then, Alucard?” She took a step back and crossed her arms, closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

“Of course.”

“I _am_ your mother.”

“Then why tempt me so?”

“Because you belong here.”

“ _How can you say that?”_

“Heaven has no need for physicians, no need for medicine,” Lisa explained. “There are no sick to heal, no wounded to tend to. But that was my life’s work. I could not so readily abandon it, even in death. Thus, I took another oath to exercise my passion.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I have become a spirit who guides the souls of the recently departed.” She laid her hand on Alucard’s chest. “A _psychopomp._ It is my duty to ease your transition into the afterlife, as I have done for so many centuries.”

Alucard found himself at a loss for words, every enraged accusation he’d had in store vanishing from his mind before they could travel to his lips.

“I know full well what kind of a person you are. I know because I helped shape you. I know how difficult it is to change your mind. But… I have my duty as well. I help people accept their deaths. I will be honest. Many of them are just like you. They refuse to accept it. They refuse to accept that their work is done. However… _t_ _his_ is where you belong now, and by letting you leave I would violate every oath I have ever taken, in life and in death!”

Under such an onslaught, Alucard broke down, clutching his mother’s arms for support as his legs buckled beneath him. He wanted to stay—he truly did—he wanted to be reunited with his friends who had died so long ago, those whose mortality he had run from so cowardly. But he was _needed_ still, as much as it hurt to admit it. “I am so sorry,” he choked out. “So, so sorry. Would that I could stay—but you must understand, Mother.”

“I _do_ understand, Alucard,” she whispered, hugging him closely.

“I have unfinished business,” Alucard said in a hushed near-whisper, his voice choked by tears as he was caught between his two greatest desires. “I still have my mission, and the stakes have _never_ been higher. Even if it makes me a revenant for all eternity, even if it means my spirit can never again be at rest—I _must_ see this through.”

“I know. You cannot.”

“Please, Mother.”

“You’ve inherited so much from your father,” Lisa mused. “Not just your pale complexion or your cheekbones, or your… frightening supernatural abilities. But his single-minded determination as well. The fire in his heart.”

“He was… a difficult man,” Alucard agreed, choking down the rock in his throat as the last of his tears wetted his cheeks, knowing full well just how tenacious Dracula had been.

“Sometimes I thought myself a fool for thinking I could change him. There were days I wanted nothing to do with him.”

“Why did you not leave him?”

“Your father needed _someone_ to hold his feet to the flames.” Lisa smiled through her own tears. “You could say you inherited twice the stubbornness from the both of us.”

“So you will let me go, then?”

“I am afraid I have no choice.” She dried her tears on her sleeve. “I’d nearly forgotten who I had been dealing with,” she added with a bittersweet smile. “You are free, Alucard, to return to the world of the living. If you wish.”

“Thank you, Mother.”

Lisa embraced him one last time, her voice cracking as she said her goodbyes.

“Now, now, Mother—There is no need to cry in paradise.”

She laughed in spite of herself. “Do not cry for me, either, my son. I am happy here.” She smiled as the room surrounding her began to fade into a white expanse of nothingness. “Alucard… you will be living on borrowed time from now on. Whether you will have years, months, weeks, days, or even hours or minutes I cannot say. I do not know how long you will live, but I shall pray with all my heart it will be enough.”

“I understand.”

“Good luck, dear.” The feel of Lisa’s arms around Alucard began to fade away. “I love you, Alucard.”

Alucard left his mother a kiss on the cheek as her body started to become insubstantial and phantasmal. “I love you too, Mother.”

The vast whiteness consumed everything, burning Alucard’s eyes, burning away at his body. There was a roaring sound like the coming of a great tsunami that filled his ears and deafened him. But before everything went black, Alucard heard one final whispered message from his mother.

_No matter how much life remains in you… please make the most of it. For me… but also for yourself, Alucard._

He heard his name repeated a dozen times and more, sometimes spoken as by a friend, sometimes uttered in a hushed and awestruck whisper, sometimes spat out with a sneer or a howl of rage. His name spoken by family and friends, heroes and villains, champions, monsters, angels, devils.

“ _Alucard!”_

And then his eyes snapped open, and his lungs filled with air. His fingers scrabbled and clawed against the wooden floorboards beneath him as electric tingles of life filled his body. His heart beat like a hummingbird’s  as a rush of sensations poured through his synapses—touch, the feel of the rough wood against his fingertips; taste, the warm and coppery blood tickling his throat; sight, the dark and dingy  heart chamber , nearly half a dozen heads gathered around him; sound, the creaking wood and excited, surprised, and even frightened gasps and shouts; smell, the reek of stale decay that permeated the castle.

“ _Yoko!_ _”_ Alucard shot bolt-upright, panting like he’d just sprinted a marathon. His friends stood before him, all in shock as they watched him rise like Lazarus from the dead.

Yoko flung her arms around him, nearly knocking Alucard to the floor. He took her hands in his. Her skin was warm; his was still cold. She sobbed into his arms. _“_ _Alucard, thank_ _g_ _od you’re okay, my god,_ _Alucard_ _…”_

Alucard noticed the blood covering his assistant’s hand, the torn skin and the subtle markings of human teeth on flesh. He ran his fingers gently over the wound. “D-did you…?”

“I thought it would bring you back.”

Maybe it _had._

Alucard patted her hand. “As always, Miss Belnades—Yoko—you are full of surprises.”

The next thing he noticed was that, underneath the smear of blood over his heart, there was nothing but smooth and unblemished skin—not a trace of the seal that had imprisoned him within his own body.

And then Alucard noticed that somebody _else_ was hugging him besides Yoko, but they pulled away as soon as Alucard noticed. Chara held up their hands, an uncharacteristically sheepish look on their worn and weary face. “I—I just couldn’t help myself.”

“Give the man some space.” Hammer shooed everybody away save for Yoko. “He just came back to life. He needs a minute.”

Alucard sank back to the floor, exhausted. _Had_ he been dead? Had he really caught a glimpse of the hereafter and seen what had truly been his mother? Or had his brief time with her on that otherworldly plane been naught but a fleeting dream, the fantasies of a brain starved of air, of sight, and of sound? That he’d come back to life at all hinted at the latter—but it had been amazingly coherent for a dream.

He stared up at the circular metal portal spanning the length and width of the ceiling. “What happened to Graham Jones?” he asked. He cast his gaze around the room, squinting into the shadowy corners, and the answer came to him.

“ We couldn’t stop him ,”  Soma answered,  his face somber. “ I’m sorry, Alucard.  He’s taken the throne room.”

“It won’t take long, then.” Alucard took a seat cross-legged on the floor, his sword in his lap. “For the castle to realign itself to its new master. When Graham exerts his will, Castle Dracula will cease to be. In its place…”

“Castle Graham,” Chara said. They leaned against their brother for support. The elation they’d displayed upon Alucard’s return had quickly trickled away as the weight of their situation pressed down on them. Between the blood, the smeared eyeshadow, and the gray bags under their eyes, they looked like a walking corpse.

–

Soma looked up at the sealed portal spanning the length and width of the ceiling and the metal grate in front of it. Above it, at least according to Alucard’s map, was a long staircase leading all the way up to the highest floor of the castle—the castle’s spine and brain stem, so to speak. He had no way of guessing how high up it was or how long it would take for Graham to climb the staircase and reach the throne room. And what would he have to do once he reached the throne? Would he have to sit on it? Was there a crown he would have to put on, or a sword he’d need to pull out of a stone before the castle would recognize him as its master?

“Castle Graham. A new and terrible Castlevania. And so too,” said Alucard, “will the castle’s inhabitants fall under his command.”

“Even me?” Willowrot the dryad warbled, clinging in fright to Asriel’s other side.

Alucard looked at her. “Who are you?”

“I—”

“She helped me unionize the castle,” Chara responded.

Alucard squinted suspiciously at her. “Yes. _Especially_ you.”

“But I don’t _want_ that man to be my master!”

Alucard was unmoved by her plight. “Dracula’s castle is not a democracy.”

“Not with _that_ attitude, it isn’t!” the dryad retorted, offended. “We can still fight, can’t we?” She tugged on Asriel’s arm. “After all that talk of not giving up (that was a such an amazing speech, by the way, Asriel)…”

“So,” Undyne said, forming a spear in her good arm and pointing it at Willowrot, her eye narrowing, “we’ll know once that guy takes control when she starts trying to kill us.”

“E-excuse me? We’re all in this together!” She pointed to Undyne, and then to Asriel. “All three of us are monsters—”

“Um, actually…” Asriel sighed. “Undyne and I… we aren’t from around here.” He cleared his throat.

“Oh.” Willowrot’s face fell. “I thought you were just from another part of the castle. I—I suppose that explains your accents…”

“Comrade Willowrot…”

The dryad snapped to attention at the sound of Chara’s voice, expecting an inspirational speech to chase away the melancholy pervading the room.

“I’m sorry _,”_ Chara told her, a tear rolling down their battered, bruised, bloody face.

The chamber fell silent.

“I filled your heart with hopes and dreams… and it all led you to this.” Chara hung their head. “I’m no Che. I’m no Enjolras.”

“You do know,” Hammer interjected, “that Enjolras _died_ in _Les Mis,_ right? And Che was killed by the CIA?”

Yoko shushed him.

“If I’d known it’d have gone like this,” Chara said, “I might have kept my mouth shut… and kept my stupid ideals to myself.”

Soma really couldn’t tell if Chara was genuinely broken or just fishing for sympathy, but if it was the latter, he really couldn’t blame them after everything they’d been through.

“It wasn’t your revolution,” Willowrot said, kneeling down beside them. “It was mine. I… I used you, Sovereign. When I was a sapling, an archdemon knocked out one of my teeth for standing up to him. I’d always hated that we lived like that. And everyone around me who just _accepted_ that… I resented them. I was angry that they couldn’t just _understand_ that I wanted things to be better for them and stand up with me. But no matter what I said, the only people who cared to listen were the ones who hurt me for speaking up.” Her eyes welled up with amber tears. “Then you and your silver tongue came along, Chara. You inspired the others in a way I never could. You helped me make my own dreams come true, if only for an hour or two. It was beautiful.”

Chara seemed at a loss for words, unable to meet the dryad’s eyes.

“I won’t stop fighting. I won’t let this new master control me, and I’ll gather others who feel the same.” Willowrot gave a somber salute. “Sovereign, it’s been an honor serving under your leadership. No matter who controls this castle, I will always be loyal to you—and our revolution.”

Soma recalled Death’s words at the start of his game. While Graham could dominate the minds of the monsters within the castle, and Soma could dominate their souls, Chara still had mastery over their _hearts._

Chara saluted back, a gleam of fragile pride sparkling in their tired eyes, a fragile half-smile tugging at the corner of their mouth. “The honor has been mine. Go forth. Do as I taught you. For as long as you are able, seize the means of destruction!”

“Yes, sir!” And with that, she stomped off, and the chamber fell silent as Chara’s hand fell back to dangle at their side. They closed their eyes and sank once more into their brother’s arms.

Asriel stood up. “The rest of you, follow Captain Undyne back to the extraction point. Alucard, back me up against Graham.” He handed Chara’s sleeping body over to Undyne.

“I knew you’d come to your senses,” she said as she took hold of Chara and slung them over her shoulder.

“I want you to keep them in one piece,” Asriel told her.

Undyne shrugged. “Yeah, all right.” She gave a whistle and set off. “Come on! Yoko, Hammer, Soma, Mina. This way!”

Asriel conjured a pack of fiery blades and levitated them through the air, piercing through the great metal barrier set into the ceiling and cutting through it, spewing sparks and bits of molten metal onto the floor. Soma knelt down, picked up the Claimh Solais—the leather strips bound tightly to its hilt felt rougher, stronger, more real than ever before—and closed his eyes, choosing his souls wisely from the arsenal in his heart.

Soma took a deep breath. “I’m not leaving yet.” He stepped forward.

Mina grabbed him. “Don’t do this, Soma.”

“I have to,” he said. “I came this far. I might as well stick it out to the end here.” And Graham’s face was one desperately in need of a good punching, preferably by _him._

“Soma, no.” Asriel’s voice was like that of a parent admonishing a child for acting out. “I won’t allow it. You’re _seventeen.”_

“So I’m told.” Soma hefted the Claimh Solais. “Look. I’m the only person here with a magic sword. I think that should count for something!”

“It _doesn’t.”_ Asriel grabbed the hilt, his furry fingers closing around Soma’s, and made to wrench the sword from his hand. “Stay behind, or—”

“Or what?” Soma pulled back and kept his tight grip on the blade. “I don’t take orders from _kings.”_ He held on to the blade defensively. Nobody was going to keep _him_ on the sidelines.

“This doesn’t concern you—”

“The hell it doesn’t! I’m a part of this fight, whether you like it or not. If I stay behind, I’ll regret it for the rest of my life!”

“If you die,” said Asriel, “you won’t be able to regret it.”

“ _Then I won’t.”_

Mina held on fast to Soma, throwing her arms around him and trying desperately to be the voice of reason, as she often was for him. _[Please,_ _come with us,_ _]_ she said, her voice little more than a whisper. _[Wh—what will I do if you don’t_ _make it_ _?]_

 _[I’ll come back,_ _]_ he told her. _[_ _I promise.]_ Soma hugged her back. He could feel her soft skin, her cheek pressed against his, her fingers kneading his coat and digging into his back, her tears wetting his neck. “I’m—I’m sorry, Mina. What I did to you, what I thought I had to do… it’s not something you should forgive me for.”

Mina held Soma tighter, burying her face in his chest. [I’m to blame as well. I gave you my permission to make that sacrifice. I just didn’t want you to die the way Mr. Alucard did…]

“Whichever of your parents it is,” Soma told her, “I—I’ll stick with you. I’ll be there for you, Mina. No matter how hard it is.”

Mina took a deep breath. “Am I really your only friend?”

Soma looked around the chamber, realizing that everyone else in here was a friend as well—and felt even worse. _“Oh, god, Mina, what have we done?”_

Mina sobbed into his chest.

Soma had crossed an event horizon. The weight of his sins tugged at his back. It was all the more incentive to leave her behind and fight Graham on his own—if that was what it took to absolve him of the horrible lows he’d sunk to in his desperate struggle to survive.

Soma dropped something into Mina’s pocket. Something for her to remember him by, in case he didn’t come back. Something that was holding him back. Something he needed to give up so _he_ could be the one to end the threat Graham posed to the world.

And then he let go of her as well.

Mina wasn’t ready to let him go any time soon. But she couldn’t hold onto him any longer: he had taken the form of a bat, and he soared into the air on leathery wings, up the vertical corridor that led to Dracula’s throne room.

Flying was like nothing he’d ever experienced before—it was like falling, but _far_ less terrifying—but the way his bat body worked, the way he could flap his wings and glide along updrafts, all came perfectly naturally to him. He _owned_ this body, this tiny furry body about the size of a football (not counting wingspan), as if he’d always lived in it.

Mina shouted out as he sailed away on updrafts.

If Graham wanted Soma’s collection of souls, then Soma would gladly give it to him, every single one, down to the most useless—but not in the way he expected.

Soma’s heart filled with loathing, and he could feel his thirst for blood returning with a vengeance. The last thing the world needed was a man like Graham, and Soma was going to do whatever it took to take him down. And _he_ was going to do it, because he hated bullies like him, because he wanted to strike a blow against this asinine conspiracy that had tried so hard to ruin his life, because he wanted more than anything to cover his sword with Graham’s blood and bury his lips in the priest’s torn-out throat like a lion feasting on a gazelle.

Alucard and Asriel could have the leftovers.

–

Dracula’s throne room was just as splendid as Graham had expected. A massive chamber nearly the size of an amphitheater. Everything ivory, satin, and alabaster. Great columns of veined marble and curved flying buttresses supported the vaulted ceiling, and although the air was still, splendid scarlet curtains still fluttered, as if cowed by the strength of Graham’s will.

Flanked by marble statues so perfect they could only have been carved by one of the Renaissance masters was Dracula’s throne, golden and ornate. It was exactly as Graham had pictured it. It was so beautiful—the way the gold shone, the way it glittered—it nearly brought a tear to his eye. It _sang_ to him.

“ _He is coming like the glory of the morning on the wave,”_ Graham sung, _“_ _he is wisdom to the mighty,  
he is honor to the brave; so the world shall be his footstool and the soul of wrong his slave.”_ His voice echoed through the empty chamber. _“Our God is marching on!”_

Graham sat down on the throne, sinking into its soft velvet seat, running his fingers along its smooth gold armrests.  To Graham’s left and right, the statues  began to weep tears of blood that ran down their cold stone cheeks.  He rubbed his hands, feeling for all the world as giddy as  a little boy on Christmas morning.

No, no Christmas morning could ever compare to  _this._ And besides, his had never been very lavish.  It was finally his! His castle! His birthright! His  _destiny!_ After years, decades of scheming, everything was paying off for Graham and Neo-Ecclesia.

Of course, if Neo-Ecclesia expected a Dark Lord loyal to _them,_ they were sorely mistaken. The tail would not wag the dog here; Graham would be in charge. And they would _know_ it.

Graham clapped his hands, expecting some denizen of the castle to come to his side. “When does the remodeling begin?” The castle had always shaped itself according to the whims of its master, scraping together the detritus of history from across time and space to build itself to Dracula’s liking. Graham could hardly wait to get started on a castle of its own design.

Graham looked around.  The throne room  remained still and silent.

_Laziness,_ he thought.  _That damnable Trotskyist._ They _did this!_ Graham pounded his fist. He would have to whip this castle’s lowlife denizens back into shape.  _Or perhaps…_

Graham didn’t feel all that much different, to be honest. Once the initial giddiness and excitement wore off, he just felt… like Graham. Could it be? That he was not the _true_ heir to the throne? That it was not Dracula’s soul inside him?

He stood up, his hands shaking, every muscle in his slight and slender body taut like steel cables. It couldn’t be true. He had been born the instant Dracula had died. It was impossible for him _not_ to be Dracula. He couldn’t have gotten this far on the hollow strength of a delusion!

He took the statue to his left in his hand, cupping his palm around its perfectly-chiseled head, and threw it to the floor. It shattered against the marble steps like cheap porcelain, spewing blood down the steps.

He  _was_ Dracula’s inheritor. He  _was!_ He  _was!_

Graham looked down at the bits of shattered and bloodstained marble, the fragments of petrified body parts strewn across the spreading pool of blood. A fractured eye nestled among some bits of fingers stared back at him.

It was a start, at least.

Graham took deep, deep breaths, letting the musty, stale air of the castle fill his nostrils as he closed his eyes.  _Calm yourself, Graham. Perhaps there is more you must do before this castle is_ truly  _yours._

The usurper.

Soma Cruz.

He had to finish  him off  _first._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's tally up those votes and see who _really_ wins Dracula's castle:  
> 


	38. Battle for the Throne Room, Part I

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Soma takes the fight to Graham while Alucard and Asriel get sidetracked.

“ _Soma!”_ Mina called out as Soma—the white bat that had been Soma—fluttered away. Asriel grabbed her by the arm before she could run underneath the ruined gateway; molten metal still dripped from the ragged, torn edges of the thick metal plating and burned holes in the wooden floor. Asriel held her back, pinning her to his chest for her own safety. _“Soma, come back! You—you f-fool!”_

Asriel patted her on the back. “There, there.”

“S-stubborn idiot,” Mina sniffed. “When he gets something in his head, it’s like—the world will move before _he_ does.”

Asriel knew exactly what _that_ was like. A long time ago, he’d done the same thing Soma was doing right now. It had been that Christmas Eve so many years ago. He remembered vividly reading the letter his parents had left him—telling him to stay behind, stay safe, let them take care of everything. And he’d feared for their lives, so of course he hadn’t listened, and he’d struck out alone.

It had taken him months before he could walk on his own again.

 _If only,_ he thought, _I could have made you understand, Soma._ “It’ll be okay,” he consoled her. He patted her on the shoulder. “Alucard and I—we’ll bring him back. He’ll be fine. As for you, Alucard, I think you owe me an explanation,” he said, feeling irate at this whole situation, “as to why you even allowed that boy to come this far in—”

With a sweep of his cloak, Alucard too became a bat, forming a winged sable silhouette in the gloomy chamber, and flew up the gaping hole in the ceiling.

“—the first place.” Asriel sighed. “You too, Alucard?”

Yoko took Mina’s hand. “Let’s go. It might not be safe here much longer.”

Asriel leaped through the hole in the ceiling and into the grand spiral staircase stretching its way to the very top of the castle, using a burst of fire under his feet to propel himself upward. Above him, already with a great head start, two bats fluttered through the air and spiraled around each other, one white, one black.

Asriel began his ascent up the marble steps as the shadows on the walls began to twist and move. Skeletal creatures crawled out from the shadows bearing swords and axes and bows; some were human, some monstrous. Of course, it couldn’t be so easy.

Up above, Alucard came closer to Soma, but fell from the air when an explosion rocked the tower; a chunk of the staircase pulled away from the wall with an agonized groan, throwing a horde of skeletons into the empty air filling the center of the column; and a man in black tackled Alucard into the other end of the column.

Alucard, shaken out of his bat form, struggled against his sudden assailant flights of stairs above Asriel. Asriel burned the skeletons in his path and leaped across the deepening chasm beneath him, slinging fireballs at the archers taking aim. “Alucard!” he called out.

A metal whistle filled the air and sliced the stairs out from Asriel’s feet; he felt the marble steps slough off the staircase with him still standing on them and dashed upward. And from below, a grand skeletal man draped in an ornate purple-black cloak and wielding an intricate, skull-adorned scythe rose above Asriel, the ragged ends of his cloak fluttering in the air. A blue light shone in the reaper’s hollow, shadowed eye sockets.

“ _King Asriel. A familiar face if ever I saw one.”_ the skeletal reaper laughed. _“You slipped through my fingers once before, didn’t you? For shame! Not even_ kings _escape from Death!”_

Asriel glanced upward. Soma had vanished—he’d made it all the way up to the top of the staircase and beyond. Alucard struggled against a new enemy. “Death, eh?” He conjured a blazing partisan. Finally, an enemy he wouldn’t feel bad about killing.

–

Soma reached the top of the tower and shifted out of his bat form, the Claimh Solais already in his hand. He wasn’t quite sure where it went when he transformed, or where his clothes went, but as long as they came back with him, he didn’t care much. He had more important concerns.

He ran across the hallway to the throne room, his boots first slapping against hard stone and then leaving muted footsteps as the cold flagstones gave way to scarlet, intricately-patterned carpeting. As he pushed forward, smoking lanterns lining the walls and molded into the mouths of stone lions’ heads blazed to life as if to welcome him.

Soma could feel something pulsing in his head, growing in strength as the great oaken double doors leading to the throne room came closer and closer. He readied his blade, drawing his sword behind him, and swung.

The doors shattered and Soma leaped through the maelstrom of wood chips, skidding to a halt with the Claimh Solais’ beautiful shining blade held out before him.

And down at the other end of the throne room, in front of the golden throne and standing over a pool of blood that dripped down the short flight of stairs before him, was Graham Jones. Aside from his scorched and blackened tie, he looked pristine, nearly angelic.

“I knew it,” Graham gasped, with a sinister gleam in his eyes. “I knew you would come for me, Soma Cruz!” He walked down the steps, his shoes unmarred by the blood covering the white marble floor. “You’re here to join me, isn’t that right? You certainly can’t mean to use that _sword_ against me!”

“You’re right.” Soma sheathed the Claimh Solais and cracked his knuckles. Graham may have been impervious to weapons, but Soma knew perfectly well how vulnerable he still was. “I’m gonna beat you to death with my bare hands.”

Graham shook his head. “Oh, you young delinquents and your penchant for violence.” His feet left the floor, the tips of his immaculate white shoes floating inches above the stone tiles, and a gust of wind fluttered Graham’s blue stole and ruffled his silver hair. “Why do you even _care?”_

“Excuse me?”

“Boy, I represent no immediate threat to you or anyone you love. You haven’t been living in America at all, for starters. The election isn’t until 2036, and it would be _at least_ a good six or eight months after that before I could engineer the president’s ousting and take his place. And from there… democracies die slowly, you know? For laws to die and be born, judges to be appointed, new rules and regulations to shape cultures and attitudes…” Graham smiled. “Did you think I’d swear on the King James Bible and the very next day my face would be on every flag in the country and my armies would be invading every country in the world? _Please.”_

“Get to the point.”

“You know, for the average person, there isn’t much difference between a democracy and a dictatorship. You eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner all the same. You watch television and go see movies all the same. You even fall in love all the same. You stay out of trouble and no harm comes your way, just as it would in any ‘free’ society. The only difference is that certain people…” Graham examined his fingernails. “Well, certain people just go _unheard_ of. Not the _smart_ ones, though. Not the ones who know to keep their heads down. And you, Soma, you’re a _smart_ boy, aren’t you?”

“Sounds like a load of shit to me.”

“Look, I’ve talked about using demonic forces to supplement military might and conquer every nation on Earth, and I _know_ that sounds frightening. True, I _will_ expect obedience, and insist on conformity to _certain_ cultural values… but I have no intention of enslaving the human race or throwing every person on Earth into a jail cell. Why bother? No need to enslave any human when demons and devils will be at your beck and call. Why, they could do all the work for us and usher in an age of human leisure and prosperity the likes of which our species has never known!” Graham’s eyes twinkled. “Wouldn’t you and your darling Mina like to be a part of _that_ future?”

“Again,” Soma laughed, “that sounds an awful lot like horseshit.”

Graham grinned, showing televangelist-white teeth as brilliant as the Pearly Gates. “I’m trying to say… why bother fighting me? What’s in it for _you?_ _I_ can guarantee a long, happy, and comfortable life for you and dear, sweet Mina. Whatever promises your so-called friends here in the castle have made to you can’t be so _easily_ kept.”

Soma rushed forward and threw a punch at Graham; the priest floated out of the way with nothing but a slight tilt of his head. Soma’s fist collided with the wall, carrying a vacuum bubble in its wake and loosing a supersonic burst of air that sent a spiderweb of cracks through the wall from floor to ceiling—a killer wrecking-ball punch courtesy of the Cerberus crab’s soul Soma had collected. If it had hit Graham, it would have pulverized every bone in his body, and as Graham floated away, Soma could see in the unsettled look growing on his face that he knew it.

“What did everyone who’s led you here promise you, Soma?” Graham asked, dodging each of Soma’s attacks with his newfound swiftness. “Did Alucard and Yoko promise to whisk you away on their little Mulder and Scully adventures? Did King Asriel promise to take you fishing, tuck you in at night, and read you a bedtime story? Perhaps your new friend Chara promised you a new life in _Glorious Peoples’ Revolution?”_

Soma’s boot slid on the blood-slicked floor as he whirled around to face Graham. “Stuff it up your ass. I’m not here to champion some glorious ideology. _I just hate bullies.”_

The priest regained his composure quickly. “How sophomoric. Are you done?”

“I’m just getting warmed up!” Soma drew back his fist and lunged at Graham, only for his feet to suddenly lose traction against the floor. The throne room lurched around Soma as he felt his entire body lift into the air as if some invisible hand had gripped him by the torso. He struggled, flailing his arms and legs, but there was nothing he could push against but empty air. “What the—”

Graham stood beneath him, his right arm outstretched in Soma’s direction and his fingers wrenched into grasping talons. “Oh, my,” he muttered in surprise. “I didn’t even know I could _do_ that now.” A diabolical grin split his face. “Well, well! Violence, dear boy, solves nothing. Didn’t your parents teach you that?”

“It—it got me this far!” Soma retorted, reaching for his sword.

“And it will get you no farther.” Graham twisted his wrist, and as Soma curled his fingers around the Claimh Solais’ hilt, all of his fingers suddenly twisted backwards—the other way around— _all_ the way around. Soma _heard_ the joints in his fingers crack like walnuts long before the pain signals reached his brain, but when they finally did, he screamed.

Soma clutched at his hand, staring through hazy tears of pain at his fingers. They’d snapped like dry twigs and bent in all sorts of unnatural directions. “You son of a bitch!”

“I won’t disagree with you there,” Graham drawled. “But I digress.” He walked in a slow circle below Soma, and Soma’s body lazily spun to follow him despite his protests.

“Perhaps now you see it.” Graham stepped close enough to reach up and tweak Soma’s nose before stepping away again. _“Real_ power is not a gun or a magic sword. _Real_ power isn’t about strength or weapons at all. _Real_ power makes those things meaningless. It’s the power, dear boy, to dominate, and _that_ is the power I was born with—the power this castle has taken to new heights!”

 _The power of dominance._ The words echoed in Soma’s head—for some reason, they sounded familiar.

Soma tried to free himself by transforming into a bat, but when he squeezed his eyes shut and tried to enter his mental locus, he succeeded only in giving himself a splitting headache—on top of the throbbing pain from his broken fingers.

“You thought you could run up here and… what? Stab me to death? Punch my head into a bloody pulp?” Graham laughed. “I am not some warrior who will meet you on equal terms in honorable combat. I do not match fist with fist, nor blade with blade. Such things are antiquities. Anachronisms!”

Graham snapped his fingers, and at once the bones in Soma’s forearm snapped, putting a sickening crick in his arm like a second elbow. Soma let out another pained scream.

 _Asriel was right. Mina was right. I never should have come this far alone. I never should have come here at all._ Soma gasped as the pain from his broken arm radiated in pulses through his body.

“When you have power,” Graham continued, “you can do whatever you want to whoever you like. You can torture them, torment them… and they can’t do a _thing_ to stop you. Can’t fight back. Can’t go to the police. No resistance. In fact, they just _let_ you do it. They close their eyes and think of England.”

 _What can I do?_ Soma thought, desperation flooding his mind. Graham could control his body like a puppet now that the priest had the full powers of Castlevania flowing through his veins, and Soma was utterly at his mercy. He couldn’t even hope that anybody else would rush in and save him—not even Alucard. _If I can’t even touch him, what chance will anyone else have?_

–

Alucard drew the Stardust Omen as Sol stood before him, still sans an arm, still heavily aged from wielding the Vampire Killer for so long. He held a long length of chain in his remaining hand and sucked air into his chest, breathing out in heavy, ragged breaths like a wild animal.

“You were dead,” Alucard pointed out. He’d seen stranger things happen than a dead man come back to life, but nevertheless, Sol’s Lazarus trick had him worried. He certainly was no Belmont. But neither was he human. What _was_ he? What had Barlowe _done_ to him?

“I will never die—not as long as you live, Alucard!” Sol lashed out with the makeshift whip; Alucard sliced it into scattered, individual broken links with one swipe of his ultra-sharp blade.

“Sol, stop this. You are not yourself.” Alucard lowered his blade, hoping for one last chance to break through the man’s horrible brainwashing.

“I… am Solomon Belmont.” Sol climbed the staircase, blood still gushing from his many wounds and trickling down the marble steps. “I am…” he growled, unparalleled rage bubbling up through his voice, “a weapon… built to snuff out the Tepes bloodline.”

 _Sol, you poor child,_ Alucard thought. _Forgive me for what I must do to relieve your suffering._

In an instant Alucard vanished from Sol’s sight, leaving only a faint afterimage and a red aura in his wake, and reappeared behind the faux Belmont. Sol’s other arm tumbled down the stairs, severed at the shoulder.

Sol whirled around and kicked at Alucard, who dodged it with ease. “You were fortunate,” Alucard said, “that you never fought me in this form.”

Before Sol could react, Alucard had once again appeared behind him and thrust the Stardust Omen’s blade all the way through his chest. “It was no surprise your father took such means to circumscribe my power.” Sol gurgled in response, writhing as Alucard skewered him. “You never stood a chance against me.”

Alucard ripped the blade from Sol’s chest and shoved him down the stairs. And yet, to Alucard’s surprise, he stood up once more, despite being thoroughly disarmed. He glared at Alucard with burning hazel eyes.

Sol screamed, his lips cracking and bleeding. A blood-stained skeletal arm burst from his severed stump—not human bones, but bones covered in wicked spines and long and thin, completely disproportionate to Sol’s body. A second arm replaced the other one he’d lost. The two skeletal arms, capped with long, sharp clawlike phalanges, dug into Sol’s chest, cracked his sternum, and tore his ribcage open, revealing an empty chasm lined with curved, outward-facing tusks. Sol howled in agony as his face split open and sloughed off, revealing a long, wicked, bestial skull, foggy green lights shining from its eye sockets.

The transformation was complete. Sol’s new head opened its mouth, lined with razor-sharp teeth, and roared as a long and bony tail burst from its back, carrying on its tip the remainder of Solomon’s mangled flesh and tossing it away.

The creature that had once been Sol—or had it been living inside Sol like a parasitic skeleton?—swiped at Alucard with razor-sharp talons. Alucard dodged the strike with ease, and the beast’s claws tore through the stone wall behind him. Its scorpionlike tail shot forward next, ripping into Alucard’s cloak and pinning its hem to the marble staircase.

 _My God,_ Alucard thought, his heart racing, _Director Ephram Barlowe, you snake, what have you done? What have you done to your own flesh and blood?_

As Alucard began to tear the heavy cloak away from the beast’s stinger, Sol’s claws slashed through the air again; Alucard threw up his sword to meet those thick, blood-streaked talons, and bone and metal clashed with a shower of sparks. The Stardust Omen cut through the bones like butter.

Emerald fire and ebony ooze leaked from the gaps between Sol’s bony fangs. Rearing back, the beast spat a viscous, flaming gob at Alucard. He tore away from the stinger just in time, but the acidic spit hit the hem of his cloak and immediately began to smoke and steam before bursting into flame.

Alucard transformed himself to mist for a brief moment and re-solidified, the burn on his cloak extinguished. The beast beat a hasty retreat, climbing up the wall and spitting fire at him from above.

–

Graham waved his arm, and Soma’s shoulder dislocated itself next. Intense pain blossomed in his shoulder and burned along his collarbone, joining the haze filling his mangled right arm, and sweat poured down Soma’s brow.

“Dracula was so small-minded,” said Graham. “He never realized the extent of his own power.” He smiled, and Soma felt his left index finger start to slowly bend backward. He realized what was about to happen, screwed his eyes shut, and gritted his teeth, but when his finger snapped the pain was no less unbearable.

“Obsessed with fireballs and throwing bats at people. Hah!” Graham shook his head. “Do you think he’d have worried at all about some stroppy European with a whip if he’d known he could do _this?”_ Graham waved his arm and Soma flew across the room, his back slamming against a marble column. Soma slid against the frigid stone and crumpled to the floor, the weight of the rest of his body pinning down his gratuitously injured arm. “He never realized what dominance means!”

Soma gritted his teeth and whimpered, trying to suppress the pain signals shooting from his arm through sheer will.

“Dominance isn’t just about subjugating your enemies.” Graham walked across the throne room, still floating just above the floor. “It’s about making them realize they were _wrong_ to oppose you in the first place.” Graham knelt down beside Soma, and even though Soma had been freed from Graham’s invisible grip, his body still hurt too much to move. “Dracula wished to kill his enemies. But I… I want what all despots want. I want even my enemies to _love_ me.”

Graham reached out with two fingers and pressed them against Soma’s brow. “You know, as angry as I was about you stealing the souls of _my_ underlings, I don’t even care anymore. Because, my boy, in just a few minutes…” He smiled. “You, Soma Cruz, are going to be my _best friend.”_

–

Death whirled around Asriel, long iron chains dangling from under his voluminous robes and whipping through the air. The ends of the chains were capped with glittering sickles that sliced through the air with shrill death-whistles. Asriel batted them out of the air, but while preoccupied, left him open to the reaper’s deadly scythe. It bit into his shoulder, drawing a long gout of blood out and sending a jolt of icy cold through Asriel’s left arm.

As he blocked Death’s next strike, his partisan coughing a shower of sparks as the silvery blade of the scythe ground against it, a trio of arrows from skeletal archers on the other side of the column thudded against the stone steps between his feet. Asriel flung a wave of golden flames across the chasm, incinerating the enemies—and their arrows in midflight.

Before Asriel could turn around to face Death once more, something hard and cold snaked across his throat, tearing at his fur with great speed as it hissed through the air. Asriel realized far too late what it was and threw up his arm; Death’s chain, which had meant to wrap around his neck and tear his head off, caught around his hand and neck instead. The chain tore through his skin.

While the chain pinned his hand to his throat, forcing Asriel to choke and gasp for air, he wasn’t out of the game just yet. He struggled to pull his hand away, giving himself precious little room to breathe, as Death’s remaining chain-mounted sickles twisted through the air and struck like vipers. With a sweeping leg kick and a burst of flames Asriel drew a current of scorching air across the winding helix twisting around the tower, the arid gale knocking the chains back.

“ _Persistent, aren’t we?”_ Death taunted, yanking Asriel off his feet and throwing him into the chasm below. _“Enjoy, Your Majesty—a long overdue trip to the gallows!”_

With a burst of fire beneath his feet, Asriel kept himself aloft, keeping the chain slack and preventing it from snapping his neck—for now. But this wouldn’t keep him afloat forever, and Death was already starting to fly upward to tighten his grip around Asriel’s throat. Above the two of them, the tower rumbled as Alucard battled the bestial skeletal creature that now served as his opponent.

Asriel swung himself over, landing on the far side of the helical staircase and running up the stairs, keeping the chain slack to the best of his ability even as Death kept tugging at it. His heart pounded in his chest, knocking against his ribcage. A skeletal knight leaped in front of him, bearing a chipped and battle-worn double-headed axe and a round iron shield; Asriel cut the skeleton down with ease, dispersed his partisan, and tore the shield out of its hand. He heard a familiar whistle cut through the air and barely managed to raise his shield in time before one of Death’s sickles honed in on him from his blind spot and slashed through the shield, leaving a deep gouge that cut all the way through the shield and drew blood from Asriel’s forearm.

A hail of arrows flew through the air, embedding themselves in the intricately-carved wall ahead of Asriel; the feathery fletching of one arrow flying close enough to tickle his nose. He halted, and the chain grew taut and swept him off his feet once again. Above him, Death cackled.

–

Graham reeled back, howling in pain; blood gushed from the bottom knuckles of his index and middle finger. He clutched at his hand, blood seeping through his fingers.

Soma spat Graham’s severed fingers out of his mouth. He’d timed his attack perfectly, activating the silver kitsune’s soul at the precise moment when Graham’s fingers had come close enough for him to snap at. And in this shape, he’d had the teeth to do it. He skittered away from Graham, claws clacking on the marble floor, his broken right arm—or was it technically a foreleg now?—dangling uselessly at his side.

Soma shifted back to human form, rising to his feet on wobbly legs. Graham’s blood dripped from his mouth. It tasted _great._ “How does it feel?”

Graham shot a venomous glare at him, his perfect composure utterly ruined. “You _dog,”_ he growled.

“Actually,” said Soma, popping his right shoulder back into place and relieving at least some of the agony washing over his arm, “that was a fox.”

Graham flung out his hand, curled his fingers, and suddenly Soma’s left hand now rested on the hilt of the Claimh Solais, and with another puppeteering jerk from Graham, Soma pulled the blade out and held it to his own throat. He struggled to resist, but Graham was in control of his body now, and he had no intention of giving it up. The blade glowed bright enough to hurt Soma’s eyes, drowning out the world with its intense blue-white light.

“Suicide,” Graham hissed, “is a mortal sin… but that’s the least of your worries now, isn’t it, boy? Gorging yourselves on the souls of the damned?”

 _Boy_ this, _boy_ that, Soma was getting _sick_ of being called _boy,_ especially by this psycho.

The edge of the blaze, sharper than the sharpest razor, slowly pressed against Soma’s neck and nicked the skin, making a shallow, stinging cut and drawing blood. He glanced around the room, but couldn’t even turn his head—all he could do was dart his eyes back and forth.

“I surrender,” he blurted out.

“What?” A smile tugged at the corner of Graham’s mouth.

–

Mina heard something jangling with every step she took through the castle. It moved when she did. It stopped when she stopped. She wasn’t carrying anything that could jangle like metal—no keyring, no spare change—so where could the sound be coming from?

“Not too far now.” Hammer prowled ahead, a flashlight in one hand and a gun in the other. “All clear. This way.”

Undyne sighed in relief. It was clear she wasn’t enjoying carrying Chara over her shoulder. “Almost there, girls!” she called out to Yoko and Mina. “What should we do when we get back?” She bared her fearsome sharkish teeth in an excited, genial smile. Mina had never thought a mouth full of such jagged, sharp teeth could look so innocent. “It’s a bright, sunny day, it’s warm out, there’s a nice cool breeze—there’s a _great_ sushi bar downtown, if either of you are in the mood for that. Or! I could cook for you guys! …But I’m told my stuff is a little avant-garde for humans.”

“You cook, Captain?” Hammer asked.

“Yeah! Pasta, ramen, salad…”

“S-salad?” Mina asked.

“Yeah, you know, a nice, crispy, crunchy, _charred-black_ head of lettuce really hits the spot…”

Mina shuddered. Undyne was right. Her cooking wasn’t meant for human consumption at all!

“Sushi would be fine,” Yoko answered. “But all I want,” she added, a wistful note in her voice, “is a long, warm bath and a soft bed.”

Mina nodded along. Nothing in the world could sound better than that. Right now, covered in so much blood and dirt and grime she felt like a living warzone, Mina would pay any price for just a shower and a fluffy pillow. “My clothes need a washer, a dryer, and an exorcism. And I,” she said, “would like to sleep for one hundred years.”

“Don’t let Soma hear that,” Hammer chuckled.

“I am sure he feels the same,” Mina said. “We could both sleep together.”

“You kids,” Yoko said, “grow up so quickly these days.”

Mina blushed. So much blood ran to her cheeks that her fingertips felt fuzzy. “Oh—Oh, no! I-I didn’t mean _—_ Just what kind of girl do you think I _am,_ Miss Yoko?”

Yoko laughed. “Ask Alucard what it’s like to sleep for a century. I’m sure he’ll do his best to dissuade you.”

There it was again—that jangling noise. Mina felt around for what it could be and felt her fingers touch cold metal tucked into her robes. She pulled it out.

“Oh, no.” There, in the palm of her hand, was the _omamori_ she’d given Soma. How had _she_ wound up with it?

Mina loved Soma, and she trusted him. She knew how strong he was. But she also knew that there was darkness inside him, darkness that this castle was doing its best to bring out—darkness that truly frightened her. She’d seen an alien intelligence flit behind Soma’s eyes when he used a particularly morbid superpower from his soul collection or when he’d indulged in his more brutal impulses. She didn’t know if it was _truly_ Dracula, or if it was something else, but it wasn’t Soma. And she feared for him, feared for his immortal soul, because of it.

How could he have given this up? “M-Miss Yoko, Miss Undyne! We need to go back—Soma’s in trouble! He—”

“Aw, you don’t have to worry about _him!”_ Undyne reassured Mina. “He’s got _the_ Asriel Dreemurr there to back him up, and lemme tell you, you haven’t even begun to see him fight!” She shrugged her shoulder, jostling Chara’s unconscious body. “Look, you’ve never seen His Highness against an enemy he’s actually _trying_ to kill. He’s been going easy on everything in this castle, the big ol’ softy! That Graham guy’s gonna be a graham cracker in five seconds flat, and that’s Captain Undyne’s guarantee.”

“But—” Mina dangled the charm. “Miss Yoko, please. You must understand. If we don’t get this over to Soma—”

“He’s got Alucard to watch over him too,” Yoko dismissively reminded her. “Mina, we can’t afford to turn back now. We have to get _you_ to safety.”

Chara cracked their eyes open. Their borrowed glasses hung askew, and they pushed them up the bridge of their nose before they could fall to the floor. “When I get back,” they said, “I’ll…”

Undyne cut them off. “Whatever it is, nope. You’re going to jail.”

Chara rolled their eyes. “Oh, come on. Please. Have I really—”

Undyne rattled off a long list of crimes. “Murder of a foreign national, attempted murder of another foreign national, attempted murder of yet _another_ foreign national, assaulting a member of the Royal Guard, assaulting the King… and that’s just the crimes I _know_ about.”

“Can’t we just bury the hatchet?” Chara twiddled their fingers. “You have to understand, I’ve had a very bad childhood. And an even worse adulthood, if you can believe that.”

“Cool excuse. Still a criminal.”

Chara slipped off Undyne’s shoulder and resolved to walk the rest of the way, grumbling as they picked themselves off the floor.

Mina opened her mouth, about to say something—but what could she say that would make the others turn back and return to Soma? And she wouldn’t dare run off on her own—she had enough trouble standing without stumbling! _What can I do?_

Mina lagged behind the others, and Chara slowed their pace to match hers. _“_ _I couldn’t help but overhear_ _,_ _Miss Hakuba,_ _”_ they whispered. _“_ _You know, I’m very worried for my_ _brother’s_ _safety_ _as well_ _, to be honest—knowing what I know about Graham. I know that if he were hurt or killed, and I had stayed safely behind, well…”_ They paused, their voice faltering ever so slightly. _“Well, I don’t know what I’d do with myself.”_

Mina was instantly skeptical, but… “Y-you want to he—”

They put their finger to her lips. _“Shh!”_

Mina lowered her voice to a whisper. She already sorely regretted what she was about to do; this was the last person she wanted to turn to for help. _“_ _You want to help me back to the throne room?_ _”_

“ _Would you_ like _my help?”_

Mina hesitated. “…Yes.”

Chara smiled, and Mina suddenly felt as though she’d made a deal with a demon.

Without the slightest warning Chara grabbed her, wrapping their arm roughly around her midsection and holding her in place in front of themselves like a human shield, then pressed the fingers on their free hand hard against the side of her head. Mina could feel their fingernails dig into her skin. She nearly screamed.

“Everybody listen up! Don’t move!” Chara snarled. The other three whirled around to face them, Hammer’s gun aimed squarely at Chara’s face. “I said, _don’t move!”_ They took a few steps back.

Mina _really_ hoped Chara was acting.

“I’m going back to the throne room. I am taking this castle by force.” Chara backed away and lifted off the floor, held aloft by invisible flames beneath their feet. Mina was seized by mild vertigo as her feet left the floor as well and dangled in the air. “None of you will follow me. If even a single one of you tries anything, I’ll bake this girl’s brain.”

“Chara!” Undyne shouted out, the snarl splitting her face sharkish and vicious. “Forget jail! You’re going straight to Hell!”

“Yes!” Chara retorted. “Curse my sudden, yet inevitable betrayal all you like! But move and she dies!” they cackled.

“Please, do as they say!” Mina wailed. It was remarkably easy to act scared, mainly because she still wasn’t sure if Chara was really _pretending_ to be so villainous. They were being very convincing.

The others relented, and Chara levitated down the hallway. As soon as the two of them were out of sight, Chara removed their fingers from Mina’s forehead. Mina sighed in relief. “You’re really an excellent actress,” they told Mina. “Have you ever considered theater?”

The castle corridors flew by. _Soma,_ Mina thought, _there are bells that cannot be unrung. Please… for your sake and mine, do not cross that threshold._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, this is going to end well.
> 
> Oh, and remember that time way back when I called Sol "Ginger Albert Wesker?" Yeah, this is what I meant.


	39. Battle for the Throne Room, Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, forces unite against Graham--but will it be enough?

“I give up.” Soma tried to take a deep breath, but couldn’t take any more than the shallowest gasp. He tried desperately to lift even a finger, straining with all his might to overcome the lock Graham had on his body. “Let me go.”

Graham’s eyes twinkled. He cocked his head.

“Please.” Soma could hear the blood rushing in his ears, the frantic jackhammer beat of his heart. He took inventory of the throne room. There had to be something he could do or take advantage of to free himself! “P-please!”

“Please _what?”_ Graham asked, taking a step closer.

“Wh—What?”

“Please _what?”_ Graham repeated. _“Who_ are you asking?”

“Let me go, please, Graham!” The blade pressed closer against Soma’s neck, his own hand and fingers trembling.

“ _Master,”_ Graham corrected.

“You’re—” Soma was about to say _you’re insane_ , but that would have been certain death at this point.

Besides, it was wrong, Soma realized. Graham _wasn’t_ insane. He was fully aware of the world around him and his place in it.

He was simply _evil._

A chill ran up his spine. Even as his darkest impulses screamed at him to tear Graham’s gut open and strangle him with his own entrails, Soma was powerless to resist. “Please, let me go,” he begged. He choked out the next word. “Master.”

“That’s more like it.” But Graham did not pull the blade from Soma’s throat. Instead, it eased closer.

“B—but I surrendered,” Soma protested. “I—I even said please, and—”

“Oh, you _surrendered?”_ Graham let out a mischievous little chuckle. “And you think that alone will spare your life? What—do you think I abide by the Geneva convention?”

Soma could hardly breathe. He felt faint. This couldn’t be the end. He hadn’t even told Mina—God, what a fool he’d been, denying it all the time, thinking they couldn’t be, because they were _friends,_ and he hadn’t understood that was how love _worked—_ and now he’d never get the chance to say _I love you._

_Mina. Help me._

“You _had_ your chance to surrender,” Graham added. “And you threw it away. The Lord does not grant second chances to the damned.”

“Please. I’ll do anything.”

Graham smiled sweetly. “Oh. _That_ changes everything. You, Soma Cruz, will die knowing that at the end, you accepted me into your heart as your Lord and Savior.” Graham’s little smile grew into a fiendish grin. “That is enough for me.”

Struggling all the way, Soma barely lifted one of the fingers unwillingly curled around the hilt of his sword.

And that was all he needed. He shot out a thin, hardly-visible spiderweb, latched onto a loose piece of masonry hanging from the ceiling above Graham, and yanked it down.

The oblong chunk of masonry hit Graham like an anvil in a cartoon, knocking him to the floor. Soma’s body went limp and he fell onto his back, the breath torn from his lungs. At long last—he was free of Graham’s monstrous puppeteering!

Graham flung out his hands, ready to retake control over Soma’s body. Using the Cerberus crab soul, Soma dug his fist into the floor and shattered it, throwing up shards of marble tiling that pelted Graham and forced him back. While the floor buckled beneath Soma, he dove for the Claimh Solais, transformed into a bat, and sailed into the air.

Graham regained his footing, although he still floated inches above the floor, as Soma retook human form in midflight.

Soma dropped down directly on top of Graham and drove the Claimh Solais into his torso, just below his sternum, all the way up to its sapphire-encrusted hilt. Blood spewed from the wound, splattering against Soma’s face as Graham gurgled and choked, blood and foam pouring from his mouth.

“ _H-how?”_ Graham sputtered. The surprise and terror frozen on his face more than made up for all of the pain he’d inflicted on Soma. _“_ _No—no weapon can—”_

But this was no ordinary weapon—it was the Claimh Solais, a sword that was as much light, as much pure energy, as it was metal. And its light was holy, and its blade could cut through all evil. Graham’s magical shield was nothing to it but a sheet of rice paper.

Soma twisted the blade. Graham howled in agony. _“_ _The buck stops here, asshole_ _,”_ Soma spat.

Graham’s face contorted into a snarl. He drew back his hand and punched Soma in the face. As the knuckles of Graham’s perfectly-manicured hand collided with Soma’s cheek, Soma almost laughed. As could be expected of a man who was practically invulnerable, he didn’t know how to throw a punch to save his life!

“ _I’d say you punch like a girl,”_ Soma hissed, red fog clouding his mind as the stench of blood filled his nostrils, _“but no girl deserves to be lumped in with—!”_

Graham aimed for his broken arm next, and although the priest was weak as a kitten, _that_ punch hurt. Graham struck him again across the face as Soma reeled back. Soma’s sword slipped from his grasp and he fell to the floor, clutching at his arm in a vain attempt to dull the electric lances of pain coursing through his nerves.

Graham rose to his feet, the Claimh Solais still embedded in his torso. He pulled the sword from his chest, wincing as he did so, and when the sword came all the way out, the look of relief on his face was as if he’d passed a kidney stone. Blood poured from his wound, then slowed to a trickle, then stopped.

Graham held up the Claimh Solais. Its blade went dark in his hands, its sharp edges dulling themselves. “Hmm.” He threw it aside. “I’ve had enough of _that._ Now, where were we?”

Soma tried to pull himself to his feet, only for Graham to drive his shoe into his face. Blood poured down his nose and into his throat, hot and thick and cloying, and he choked on it.

Graham took a handful of Soma’s collar, raising his fist as he pinned Soma in place. “As fun as telekinesis is, boy, I think I’m finally starting to see things _your_ way.”

“So now you know you’re an evil son of a bitch?”

Graham laughed. “No! Now I’ve learned how much more _satisfying_ it is!” And he drew his fist back and punched Soma in the face, over and over again. “To feel their skin break against yours! What a _heavenly_ feeling!” With every blow, the red haze clouding Soma’s vision grew thicker and thicker. It stopped hurting after the first few blows; there wasn’t enough real estate left on Soma’s face that didn’t hurt enough already. “I can’t believe how long I’ve denied myself this earthly pleasure!”

–

As Asriel sailed through the air, a beam of emerald fire lanced out from above and cut an eye-searing arc through the air, neatly cutting through the staircase and the inner walls of the tower.

The chain finally went slack, severed by the same green laser, and Asriel tumbled through the air. Above both him and Death, the skeletal beast Alucard was fighting leaped across the tower, firing the same lance of deadly green fire from its mouth and slicing through the walls like an industrial-strength water cutter.

Asriel fell, and Death’s sickles spiraled overhead and closed in on him. He flung out his arms, conjuring seven blossoms of fire to match seven sickles; the fireballs all moved under Asriel’s complete control.

Independently controlling multiple fire constructs at once was taxing on the mind: Asriel hadn’t had to exert such fine control over his flames in years, and it felt as though his skull were caught in a vise as the fireballs each hit their targets and exploded, blanketing the interior of the tower in a cloud of blazing yellow-gold flames.

As the fire faded into a flurry of sparks and wisps of smoke, one surviving chain-sickle cut through the air. Death cackled. _“You missed one!”_

Asriel ignored Death’s taunt as he maneuvered through the air with bursts of flames like makeshift vernier thrusters keeping him aloft. He reached out his hand, grabbed onto the sickle’s handle, and shot himself to the side. Asriel’s feet landed on the wall and he booked it, running across the walls until he was above Death, then lunged for the skeletal reaper.

Death saw him out of the corner of his eye and turned his head to meet Asriel, bringing his scythe to bear. His blue eye glittered. _“Clever boy—but not enough!”_

Death drew back his scythe as if he were about to hit a hole-in-one—and that was when the seventh fireball Asriel had conjured, the one that had “missed,” careened into the side of Death’s head and shattered half of his skull. Death screeched in agony. His jawbone went spiraling off his skull and fell into the depths as his cranium collapsed in on itself, and his scythe fell from his hand and spun through the air.

As Death reeled backward, Asriel pounced, landing on the reaper’s chest, and the two of them slammed into the far side of the tower. Still holding onto the sickle, Asriel tore Death’s robes clear of his chest and hooked the blade into Death’s ribcage. _“_ _This,”_ he growled, _“is for Chara.”_

Then, using the severed length of chain still hanging around his neck, Asriel hooked that sickle under Death’s ribs as well and flung him off the staircase.

Asriel hung onto his length of chain as Death tumbled down, and when the chain went taut, Asriel swung upward with all his might, throwing him up with a mighty roar. _“Alucard!”_

Dealing with his own foe, Alucard grappled with the skeletal beast’s razor-sharped talons, wrestling the creature as it lashed out with its scorpion-like tail. As Death flew upward, Alucard finally got the upper hand, throwing the beast off the staircase.

Both the skeletal beast and the reaper collided in midair, fusing into a mass of clattering bones.

“ _Got it!”_ Alucard shouted, the high of combat drawing a feral grin on his beautiful face. He drew his sword, the Stardust Omen Alphys had invented to be the ultimate sword, and leaped into the air; with a supersonic flurry of cuts, he tore both Death and the creature that had once been Sol into pieces.

Asriel sighed and leaned against the wall as remnants of both his enemy and Alucard’s rained down, letting the now-slack chain fall from his hand. “Thanks, Alucard.” He caught his breath. “Remind me to—”

Death’s scythe, spinning through the air like a wicked boomerang, would have taken off Asriel’s head had Alucard not grabbed him and forced him down.

A crack rang through the stairwell like a gunshot, echoing across the walls, and the end of a long leather whip wrapped around the flying scythe and knocked it out of the air. And from the same hole that Alucard’s enemy had burst out of stepped an old, ragged man with rusty gray hair and a long, brown overcoat.

“Couldn’t let you have all the fun,” the man called out, “could I, Alucard?”

Alucard smiled. “Julius!” He helped Asriel back up. “Never fear, Your Highness—this one’s a friend of mine. He’s the man who killed Dracula.”

–

Graham raised his fist again, a devilish smile splitting his blood-spattered face, sweat dripping from his brow.

And then he stopped.

“ _It’s much more fun when they can fight back, trust me.”_

A strong, white-furred hand had gripped Graham’s arm by the wrist, locking it in place. Graham glanced behind his shoulder, annoyed.

King Asriel Dreemurr stood behind him, his golden eye cold and stern, his hand trembling with quiet fury as furry digits tightened around Graham’s wrist. At the door to the throne room, Alucard and J stood by, weapons at the ready.

Asriel tore Graham off of Soma and laid into him. Each blow sent Graham reeling, stumbling over his own feet as he backpedaled across the throne room’s cracked and broken floor. Watching Asriel pummel the mad priest was like watching Muhammad Ali go twelve rounds with the scrawniest nerd in a high school debate club.

Alucard rushed to Soma’s side, with J close behind him. “Are you all right, Soma?”

Before Soma could give a response (one that would be suitably snarky and sarcastic), Alucard pulled back the sleeve on his right arm, sending a jolt of pain all the way up it, and laid his eerily cool hands on Soma’s bare skin. He murmured something as he observed Soma’s broken arm with the clinical detachment of a surgeon. “This will only hurt for a moment,” he said before taking the arm in both hands and setting the fractured bones back in place.

Soma gritted his teeth and swallowed what would have been the loudest scream in his life as his entire arm went white-hot. “Dammit!” He nearly collapsed, but Alucard held him up. “Could’ve warned me!”

“I did,” said Alucard, raising a pale eyebrow.

“Your bedside manner needs work, Al.” J shook his head. He pulled out a tin flask from his coat and handed it to Soma. “Long time no see, Soma. Here, drink this.”

Soma took the flask and eyed it with suspicion. “W-what is this? Brandy?”

“Better. Some healing tonic I pinched from the alchemy lab downstairs.”

Soma popped off the cap and sniffed it. It certainly _smelled_ like medicine. “You’re sure about this, J?”

“The flask’s only half-full for a reason, kiddo.” J crossed his arms. “Also, it’s Julius now,” he added with a note of pride.

“Huh. Better name than J, I guess.” Soma raised the flask to his lips, ignoring the nose-hair-singeing smell, and chugged it. Instantly the pain faded from his broken arm and fingers; he couldn’t even feel them twisting their way back into place. Within seconds all of the injuries he’d sustained had righted themselves, although his right arm still ached and he struggled to move it.

“Good to the last drop, huh?” Julius asked, taking back the flask and tucking it back into his coat.

Asriel punched Graham into a wall, and the priest slumped over, his eyes rolling up into his head. _“_ _See?”_ He grabbed Graham by the throat and chokeslammed him into the floor. _“That wasn’t fun at all.”_

Asriel took a step back, clapping the dust off his hands. “Soma!” he called out, glancing over his shoulder, his cold gaze immediately warming. “You all right there?”

Soma gave a weary thumbs-up.

Graham staggered to his feet, his white suit ragged and torn, his silver hair matted with blood, hate filling his violet-gray eyes. A faint black aura seemed to pour out of his skin, twisting and curling in the air before dissipating. A vein throbbed in his forehead as he held out his arm, fingers curled into claws. “How dare you, you… you… _livestock!”_ he spat.

Asriel raised his fists. “I’ve been called worse,” he countered. “Now you—”

Graham twisted his wrist and the king began to sputter and choke, his eye widening as the air grew heavy and thick within his lungs. Shocked, Asriel clawed at his throat and fell to his knees as blood vessels began to burst in his eye, gasping like a fish in a desert.

Alucard rushed at Graham with inhuman speed, but with a flick of his other wrist Graham threw him against the ceiling and let him fall back to the floor, accompanied by a heavy shower of masonry. The roof of the tower creaked with foreboding malice.

“ _No!”_ Soma scrabbled against the floor, picking up a shattered marble floor tile, and threw it at Graham. It sailed harmlessly over his shoulder, and as Graham clenched his fist, ribbons of blood poured from his palm down his wrist and soaked his ragged cuffs.

At that very same instant, Julius swore and drew a coiled leather whip from his side, letting it unfurl to its full length. Soma instinctively backed away at the sight of it. Something in his gut told him that if anything could hurt Graham, it was _that_ whip, that—what was it called? The Vampire Killer?

The Vampire Killer struck Graham, its crack like a thunderclap that shook the throne room and the long tower beneath it all the way down to the castle’s foundations; the whole room grew silent in its aftermath as if some unseen force had stuffed cotton balls down Soma’s ears.

As sound slowly returned to the throne room, the first thing Soma heard was Graham screaming. Blood spurted from his shoulder like a fountain where his arm would be. The whip had torn it off, sleeve and all, and only a mangled chunk of what had once been a shoulderblade remained attached to Graham’s torso. His eyes were as wide as saucers, and now _he_ was the one gasping for air as he clutched at his severed shoulder trying desperately to staunch the flow of blood.

Julius reeled the whip back in. “My family’s been dealing with shits like you since the eleventh century.”

“ _Belmont,”_ Graham hissed through blood-stained teeth. The surname sounded familiar to Soma (where had he heard it before? From Alucard, maybe?).

Asriel rose to his feet, his lips curled back to reveal a mouth full of razor-sharp fangs, and waved Julius back. Graham flung out his left hand, hoping to ensnare the king once more, but as he reached out with curled fingers he was engulfed in golden flames.

The fire poured from Asriel’s fingertips like a rushing river, cascading over Graham’s body in waves. Asriel roared as he immolated the priest, golden flames flowing from one outstretched hand, then the other, a gleam of diamond-hard, star-hot utter _hatred_ burning in his red-rimmed, amber eye. With the flames curling around him and crashing onto Graham’s immobile body, the sparks flying back against him, the pure loathing contorting his face as harsh shadows flickered across it, Asriel looked every part the demon; Soma realized why, all those countless centuries ago, ancient humans had feared monsters so much.

Asriel fell on all fours, gasping for breath as the jet of flames trickled to a stop. Amber light flickered against him as the fire continued to consume Graham, every inch of him from head to toe set alight. Another crack of the Vampire Killer threw him against the window, shattering the glass, and throwing Graham down the heights of Castlevania’s tallest tower with a trailing scream.

Soma rushed over to the edge of the window, stopping to grab the Claimh Solais, and looked down, half-expecting to see Graham clinging to life just below the sill.

But instead, he saw no body at all. Not even a corpse splayed on the shingled rooftop eaves below.

Soma had been expecting to feel relieved… but instead, all he felt was a creeping sense of dread crawling up his back.

–

Chara’s feet touched the dewy grass of the inner courtyard and they stumbled a bit as they landed, leaning against a crumbling statue, panting for breath, and clutching at their burned arm. As they let Mina down, she almost felt sorry for asking this of them, even though she couldn’t fully dispel her suspicions that Chara was using her to get closer to the throne room.

Chara sank to their knees and slumped over.

“Are you—”

“Yes, I’m fine,” they snapped. “Just give me a minute.”

Mina couldn’t bear to imagine the danger Soma was in. “But we don’t have a minute—”

“ _I know!”_ Chara’s fingers dug into the ground, worming their way between slick blades of grass and black soil. “Don’t you _dare_ remind me of the stakes! Asriel… he’s _all_ I have left. If he dies— _I_ die.”

Mina felt that Chara, if they were speaking truthfully at all, was not speaking metaphorically. “So you really aren’t using me to reach the throne and become—”

“No!” Chara looked shocked. “Why do you people all have so much trouble _believing_ me?”

Mina knew she had no choice but to trust them. She allowed herself to rest as well, although her anxiety grew with every passing moment, and forced herself to take deep, slow breaths. A short break would do no harm, she told herself.

“Of course,” Chara said with a weak, self-effacing smile, “I _am_ a liar. All my life it’s been second nature to me… it’s no wonder you have trouble trusting me. But may I tell you something honestly, Miss Hakuba?”

Mina nodded.

“You aren’t to tell anybody.”

“Okay. I won’t.”

“From the day I was born,” Chara mused, a pensive, reflective tone seeping into their voice, “I’ve loathed my own species. Humankind was anything but. All they ever did was take from me.”

Mina felt a chill run up her spine. What kind of life had Chara led as a child? What horrible things had been done to them?

As if anticipating her question, Chara went on. “I don’t remember much about my childhood. I don’t even remember what year I was born, or what century. I remember the pain, though. I remember—I had _scars,_ but I don’t know _why_ anymore. I don’t know if I ever did.” Chara rolled up their sleeve to their elbow and showed white skin. “I don’t have them anymore. Not on this body.” They traced a few lines over their skin. “But I can see them, like the phantom canals on Mars.”

Mina let her hand hover over Chara’s, and with a moment’s hesitation, her fingers traveled over the same invisible scars theirs had defined. “Humanity had no value to me,” Chara continued. “Only monsters. And… there was a kind of flower I liked,” they said, their face breaking out in a wistful half-smile.

Mina could see tears welling up in their eyes. She patted them on the back. It seemed to be the only thing that was appropriate for her to do. Chara was a terrible person by just about any metric (and Mina did not think such things lightly), but they seemed to be trying not to be. Maybe they were even trying their best.

“Asriel was my first real friend, and I was his, and… and I wish I’d known how to be better for him.” They swallowed. “I—I wish I’d been the friend he deserved. I wish I’d…” Their voice caught in their throat.

“Chara…?”

“I wish,” said Chara, sniffling, “I wish I’d deserved him.” They shook their head. “But after all… I was only human.”

Mina wasn’t sure how to feel about that remark. “Er… I’m only human, too.”

“Yes. Yes, that’s true,” they said, fumbling a bit with their sleeve in embarrassment. “But Mina, you and your friend Soma—and don’t tell him I said this…” Chara put a hand to Mina’s collar and looked up to her as if she were a saint. Mina felt at once both flattered and humbled… and felt Chara’s own sorrow, the volatile melding of their self-obsession and self-loathing at war with itself within their heart, wash over her as they looked at her with scarlet eyes that seemed to beg her for absolution.

“You’re not like the others,” they said.

“Th… thank you?”

Chara struggled to pull themselves to their feet, wiping their eyes on their sleeve. “I’ve only ever felt such kindness from one other human being. When you’re here with me,” they said, as they stumbled and Mina caught them before they could fall back on their knees, “it’s almost as if they’re standing right next to me again.”

“You humble me.”

“As you should be.” Chara sighed like somebody in love. “By the way, that pendant you wanted to deliver to Soma… what exactly is so important about it?”

“It’s a blessed amulet. Soma needs it,” Mina said, letting the _omamori’s_ chain tangle around her fingers, “because… I really am afraid he might be Dracula.”

“And _that_ will protect him.”

Hearing the skepticism in Chara’s voice made Mina doubt the talisman could do anything for him as well. “I—I hope?”

“It’s worth a shot, I suppose. Full disclosure, I think Soma would be a _terrible_ Dracula.”

A flashlight cut through the garden; Mina threw up her hand and squinted as a trio of soldiers from Solomon’s paramilitary group ran between the scattered stone monuments. In all the mess with Graham Mina had nearly forgotten about that faction, even though they were the ones that had brought her here in the first place.

“ _Is that Chara Dreemurr?”_ one asked in a hushed voice. “The _Chara Dreemurr?”_

Chara tried to stand up but failed, collapsing to their knees yet again. They clawed at the wound on their arm, a feral, rabid fire burning in their scarlet eyes. “Mina, stand back.”

The soldiers shone the flashlights affixed to their rifles on the two of them; Mina squinted against the searching lights and took hold of Chara as they tried to rise to their feet.

One soldier motioned to the others, and all three lowered their weapons. “Hey,” he said, pulling off his facemask to reveal the face of a young man—Mina thought he must have been only a year or two older than her. “You’re Chara, right?”

“And why,” Chara spat, “would you be asking?”

He held out his hand. “Because I’m with the Republic.”

Mina was just as confused as Chara by this development.

“My name is Santiago,” said the soldier. “These two are my friends. We’re deserting, got it?”

Chara was still reticent. “You can’t just _say_ you’re part of my vanguard, it’s—”

The entire castle shook as if its foundations had been racked by an earthquake. Mina hesitantly stepped behind Chara as a horde of monsters marched out from the shadows. Creatures that walked, slithered, crawled, and flew all slunk out of the depths of the castle, their eyes briefly shining in the dark like silver dollars before they came into the flickering amber lamplights illuminating the garden.

Chara must have worried that the monsters were allied with Graham, because they changed their tune in an instant. “Okay, you’re in—now _defend your Sovereign!”_

A wolfish man-shaped creature covered in thick, rust-colored fur stepped forth from the mob. The wolfman held a long, wicked sword that shone with a sickly red aura, and around its long and pointed right ear was a ribbon Mina instantly recognized. “Hail Sovereign Chara!” he shouted out, saluting. “Hero of the Republic!” The rest of the monsters behind him repeated the oath in a single voice.

Embarrassed, Chara begrudgingly took Santiago’s hand and stumbled to their feet.

Mina glanced back and saw that a second wolfman had come up behind her, an identical ribbon tied around his left ear. He fumbled with a purloined rifle, trying to no avail to reload it. A dryad with cherry blossom hair at his side struggled to wrestle it away from him. “No, no, Woof, let _me_ do it, your paws are too stubby to work the trigger—”

Warp and Woof. Chara’s lieutenants, the same ones who’d gone mad and tried to eat Mina earlier. Had they recovered their senses?

Woof noticed Mina and knelt down, taking her by the hand. Mina froze, the bite wound on her arm throbbing as she looked into the wolfman’s feral orange eyes. “Are you injured, milady?” he asked.

Mina was speechless. If she hadn’t been frozen in place by terror, she’d have run away.

“Madame Hakuba. My brother and I wish to apologize for harming you earlier,” Woof continued. “That evil priest had the two of us enthralled, and try as we could we were powerless to resist the horrid thoughts he’d planted in our heads.” He bowed his head. “Our weakness shames us both.”

Willowrot shot over to Chara’s side, grabbing at them with her twiggy fingers. “Isn’t this great? I’m getting the vanguard back together!”

Chara smiled through the pain wracking their body. “I knew we’d meet again. Miss Hakuba and I are headed for the throne room. Can I depend on you, comrades, to help us get there?”

Willowrot and Woof saluted in unison, as did the trio of soldiers. “Of course!”

“Well, then…” Chara straightened up, wiped the sweat from their brow, flung an arm around Mina’s waist, and grinned devilishly. “Don’t just stand there. Give us a boost.”

Chara stepped forward with Mina in tow, her feet skimming the trampled and mist-slicked grass, but as they put one foot forward an electric crackle filled the air and a forest of aquamarine-blue electric lances sprang up from the ground, intersecting to form a cage of lightning around the two of them, arcs of electricity leaping between the bars.

Undyne stepped onto the lawn, the static charge in the air wreaking havoc on her mane of fiery red hair as she approached the prison she’d created.

“Undyne! You _Javert!”_ Chara growled like a chained-up wolf. On the outside of the lightning cage, the ragtag remains of the Republic of Castlevania readied their weapons.

“Joyride’s over, punk.” A bolt of lightning flashed to life in Undyne’s fist, shaping itself into a long staff topped with a wickedly-curved, single-edged blade; an ethereal glaive crackling with cyan sparks of electricity, like a nightmare version of the naginata once wielded by the _onna-bugeisha_ of feudal Japan. “Get your hands off Mina. It’s over. You’re finished.”

“It isn’t what you think!” Mina insisted.

“All right.” Undyne shouldered the polearm. “Ten seconds to explain yourself, starting—” Something caught her eye, lifting her head upward. Her expression shifted instantly from anger to confusion. “What the hell is _that?”_

Chara raged against the electrified bars holding them captive, ignoring the crackling bolts of lightning searing their palms as they rattled the intertwined spears. _“Undyne! Let us go! You have no idea—!”_

Mina followed Undyne’s upturned gaze, looking up to the heavens, and saw a sight more horrific and disgusting than anything she’d ever seen before. And at its sight, even Chara fell silent.

–

As Soma and the others took a moment to catch their collective breath in the throne room, the floor shook, and the whole castle seemed to shudder in kind. The roof trembled like a leaf in a windstorm, raining down a shower of debris as the arched flying buttresses holding the vaulted ceiling in place snapped and cracked.

Asriel grabbed Soma by the arm—not his sore arm, thankfully—and pulled him to the floor as the opposite wall of the throne room burst apart, shaking the whole tower down to its foundations. The ceiling bulged and caved in; with a quick flurry of slashes, Alucard cut through the falling chunks of stone and wood from the crumbling roof and ceiling, leaving only a rain of pebbles and small splinters raining down.

Graham floated outside the throne room, surrounded by an aura of black lightning as he hung in the air like a malevolent marionette. His arms and legs all hung limp, and yet his face was contorted and his eyes alert and brimming with malice.

As he floated on thin air, wreathed in crackling electricity and wisps of fog, a pair of massive, fleshy white wings protruded from his back, ripping through his suit. No—not wings, Soma noticed, as the protuberances twisted and writhed and grew. They looked like… _people,_ two alabaster giants conjoined at the hip and connected to Graham’s back, hair flowing outward in and unfurling to either side of the mad priest, their downcast faces linked by a gold circlet that ran through both pairs of eyes and hung over Graham’s head like a sickening parody of a halo.

At the waist, where the two statuesque figures joined with Graham, their marble-perfect skin split and shrank away to reveal pulsing red organs and curved ribs that crossed in front of Graham like a protective cage. A network of pulsating meat encircled Graham, and as it engulfed his lower body he rested his hands on it as if it were the control panel to some giant mechanized death machine. Entrails hung from the bottom of the monstrosity, dangling in the frigid wind like severed cables, dripping offal on the castle far below the tower.

The two figures’ four arms hung in the air and twisted, their hands expanding to grotesque proportions and folding to cover the rest of Graham’s warped and monstrous body. A slit appeared on each ivory-white hand and each opened to show a single, blinking eye with a violet iris.

What little remained of the throne room teetered as bitter, howling wind tore over its bare top and buffeted the crumbling tower. Soma shivered as his torn trench coat wriggled and flapped in the gale, his numbing fingers clutching the hilt of his sword as his right arm hung limp and heavy at his side. His breath caught in his throat before the wind could tear it from his lungs.

In his mind, Soma was back on the plane, clinging for dear life, feeling the frigid metal burning his fingers as the wind tugged at his hair and froze his ears.

The monstrous creature hung in the air in front of the gilded, antique face of the castle’s clock tower. As black lightning crackled across the body of the horrifying creature, all four hand-wings unfurled at once, revealing Graham’s sickening new body in all its nauseating majesty, and the priest’s booming voice filled the air. _“IT’S NOT OVER, SOMA CRUZ—IT’S NOT OVER YET!”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For reference, _this_ is Graham's final form in the game:  
>   
>  Delightful. And yup, there's Graham in the middle, piloting that abomination like a fucking Gundam designed by David Cronenberg.


	40. Battle for the Throne Room, Part III

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Castlevania chooses its master.
> 
> [(musical accompaniment)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vK67sHPC4mM)

Bursts of golden flame slid off the grotesque hand-wings shielding Graham’s body like water off Teflon as Graham swooped around the high tower, fleshy missiles flying from the undersides of the four horrific wings and homing in on the motley crew beneath him.

Soma could only watch. The air felt thin in his lungs. Why couldn’t his legs move? Why was his resolve faltering _now_ of all times?

Graham cackled overhead as a beam of light lanced from within the organic vehicle enclosing him, electric blue and crackling with lightning, and tore through the tower like a high-pressure water cutter through steel. The floor beneath Soma’s feet immediately started to crumble as the entire top of the tower, throne room and all, sloughed off and fell into the open air with all of its inhabitants.

“ _Usurpers and iconoclasts!”_ Graham shouted out with manic fervor to the courtyard far below. _“Kneel before me, Graham Jones, lord of this castle, or despair!”_

The world spun around Soma. Stone, wood, steel, and other debris fell downward, upward, sideways as he tumbled through the air. At his side, tethered to him by a strong arm wrapped around his, Asriel commanded jets of flame to right their course and evade the shower of rubble.

 _Get your head in the game, Soma! You can_ fly, _you airheaded dolt!_

Right. Gathering his wits about himself, Soma transformed into a bat, his arm easily slipping out of Asriel’s grip as it morphed into a spindly wing, and flew straight at Graham. His pulse pounded in his ears, rapid and strong, as he flapped his wings and glided through the air, the priest’s abominable form drawing closer and closer.

_Kill him. Kill Graham. Kill the usurper._

Flying—and falling—was so much more manageable with the instincts and muscle memory of a bat on Soma’s side, and the ruins of the castle spinning around him as he dodged the Cronenberg-esque fingernail missiles homing in on him and laser blasts that left the smell of burnt ozone lingering heavily in the air until the wind swept it away.

Closer… closer…

When a flying nail, sharp as a knife, tore itself through his wing, ripping through the thin membrane stretched between spindly fingers, he hardly even felt it at first, but he fell out of the sky all the same.

A dark shadow rushed to his aid, plucking Soma out of the sky like an eagle plucking a fish from the water, and flitted into one of the verdant garden platforms hanging impossibly around the tallest tower of the castle. The bat took Alucard’s form as it sailed through a curtain of withering vines and touched down on the cracked marble floor, and Soma shifted back as well, blood streaming from the skin between two of his fingers. What had been like a gaping hole in a sail in his bat form was scarcely more than a minor cut in human form, much to Soma’s relief.

Alucard helped Soma up as he caught his breath. “Are you hurt?”

“Only my pride,” Soma lied, his arm still sore and achy as it dangled at his side. He lifted up the Claimh Solais with his good arm. “I’m all right. Just help me get close enough to him with _this,_ and one hand will be enough.”

Soma leaped into the air once again.

–

Undyne grabbed Asriel as he fell to the ground, even though he probably could have landed safely on his own. The king brushed debris from his shoulder, disguising how incredibly weary and exhausted he looked. Poor Asriel—always trying to do too much with too little. “What good fortune, Captain.” He looked around the courtyard. “Undyne… why is my sibling in a cage?”

Undyne sighed. “Misunderstanding.” She snapped her fingers and freed Chara from their prison. They collapsed to their knees, rubbing their burned hands against the grass as the rest of their vanguard tended to them.

Asriel nodded as he helped Chara and Mina to their feet, and the three of them took cover under an awning, Undyne following close behind.

Hammer rushed in with Yoko in tow. “All right, Cap, let’s get Mina and gooo _ooo_ _oh my God,_ what the hell is _that?”_

“Graham Jones.” Chara grinned. “More evil than _me,_ if you can believe it.”

Undyne looked back up at the grotesque monstrosity hovering in the air. _“That’s_ Graham?” Looking up at the flying creature as it rained death down on the courtyard, she recalled how difficult Graham had been to hurt back in the arena. He’d shrugged off Undyne’s strongest lightning blast as if it had been a gentle breeze. “So how do we kill him? Any Achilles heel we should know about?”

“What if,” Hammer suggested, “we drop something really heavy on him? Or blow him up?”

Yoko glanced at the clock tower looming over the gardens, stroking her chin thoughtfully.

Yoko snapped her fingers, her eyes brightening. “I’ve got an idea!” She clapped Undyne on the shoulder. “Undyne, cover me while I head for the clock tower. Chara, you lead Graham over to the west side of the tower and let us know when he’s in position.”

It sounded an awful lot like Yoko wanted to blow something up. Undyne had a _very_ good feeling about this.

Asriel cracked his knuckles, and Undyne could see that familiar old spark of fighting spirit in his eye once again. “Undyne, you take orders from Yoko for now. Chara, don’t you dare leave my side. Hammer, Julius, bring Mina to the front gate—I don’t think we have much time.”

More monsters began to flood the courtyard—and not the friendly kind. “You sure you’ll be all right on your own?” Undyne asked Asriel.

Chara took Asriel’s hand. “With me at his side?” They grinned. “We’re unstoppable.”

 _I’ll hold you to that,_ Undyne thought, _you little asshole._ “ Are you _sure_ about this, Asriel?”

“Trust me, Captain. Yoko needs you more than I do.”

As Hammer and Julius led her away, Mina pulled out a silver trinket and placed it into Chara’s hand. “Please give this to Soma.”

Chara pocketed it. “Of course, dear.”

Undyne conjured her naginata again and led Yoko on, cutting a path through the castle’s twisting corridors.

–

Soma flew through the air once more at Graham, missed, and fell back, landing in the courtyard—into a maelstrom. A cacophony of war, unbearably loud and chaotic—but with more than enough targets to slake his bloodlust. Within seconds he’d run a reptilian creature through and claimed its soul, healing his arm and restoring life to his battered and weakened body.

But as the fighting wore on, monster versus monster, human versus monster, monster versus human, it seemed that Soma was fighting a losing battle against his own fatigue no matter how many souls he took. If these orbs of light were medicine, then Soma was building up a tolerance.

Up high, framed between Castlevania’s two tallest towers and the light of the giant moon overhead, Graham spotted Soma and swooped down, firing lances of blue light at the ground and vaporizing all who stood close to him. The air burned and boiled around Soma as Graham took aim.

Across the courtyard, Asriel and Chara drew apart from each other, divided by the enemies surrounding them. In another corner, Alucard was hacking and slashing his way through the melee with a feverish elegance. Soma was on his own.

Graham closed in on Soma, getting as close as he could to hit him at point-blank range, and Soma ran. As he ran across the battlefield, stumbling over slain foes, he caught Chara’s eye.

Chara put a hand to their throat. “Got ‘em.”

 _Dammit,_ Soma thought, sparing another glance up at Graham as he prepared another blast of his death-ray. _Why of all the people here did it have to be_ them?

He flung out his hand. _“Chara!”_ he shouted out. _“Chara, help!”_

–

On the eastern wall of the clock tower, Yoko drew the last arc in a complex transmutation circle, using the last of the blood vials she’d obtained from the librarian. Thankfully, Alucard didn’t need them anymore. Behind her, Undyne fended off monster after monster as Yoko stepped back to admire her handiwork.

As a chemist, if there was one thing Yoko knew, it was nitrogen.

Nitrogen, as they said in chemistry, was a racist monogamist. It was happiest in the form of N2 and a few other compounds and miserable everywhere else, and the speed at which a molecule that shoved too many nitrogen atoms together would break down into N2 was called the “detonation velocity.”

Chemists jokingly treated diagrams of unstable nitrogen compounds as if the mere act of _drawing_ them would set off a reaction. One such theoretical compound was N60, a molecule that fit them sixty at a time to globular, soccer-ball patterns that nobody in the world would be foolish enough to synthesize.

There were three names for this molecule. “Happy Fun Ball” was one. “Ohfuckminsterfullerene” was another, jokingly named after the compound “Buckminsterfullerene.” The other, far more common name for it was “What the hell is—”

This transmutation circle would turn the very air into a bomb. A very powerful bomb.

Yoko was playing with fire. These reactions were fast and uncontrollable. The explosion could very well blow her to pieces if the transmutation went off before she could get away in time.

“All set!” Yoko called out.

Undyne pulled back and relayed the message to Chara. “They’re ready, too. How much time do we have to get away?”

Yoko finished the final symbol in the chemical reaction. She felt like she was signing her own death warrant, but hell—there was no backing out now. “A minute, maybe.”

Undyne’s face fell. “Is that the best you can do?” She sighed, grabbed Yoko by the arm, and started dashing across the rooftop as the air around the clock tower began to boil.

–

Chara looked Soma dead in the eyes. He was struggling to pull himself out of Graham’s sights—Chara could _see_ his desperation as Soma reached out and begged, _begged_ Chara for deliverance, stretching out his hand as the distance between him and Chara grew smaller.

Time seemed to stop.

 _I could kill him right here,_ Chara realized. _I could kill him and Graham both._

The thoughts raced through Chara’s head at the speed of light. They could cram a year’s worth of thoughts into a second. _I could become the new Dracula. I could take the throne and the castle. Castlevania would be mine. All its inhabitants would be mine. All its powers would be mine._

Chara could _see_ it. They could see everything they could have laid out in front of them like a banquet.

A throne more splendid than the one they had lost. They could sit in it, dressed to the nines, drinking the finest wines and eating the finest foods. And of course, _all_ monsters would be equal, because Chara was nothing if not _proud_ of their convictions, but Chara would be the _most_ equal.

A kingdom stronger than the one they’d lost. A haven for monsters, for the victims of all human evils, a supernatural dreadnought capable of sinking fleets and blasting air forces out of the sky. They could rule the world… but they wouldn’t _need_ to rule the world. They could watch the humans tear the world apart from the safety of an impregnable keep, then spread across the planet once mankind had driven itself to extinction, as they were bound to do.

A new family, loyal to the end. Friends, comrades. They could plug the holes in their heart, plaster the cracks, bandage the cuts.

If they took the castle, they took the world… and Chara could be _whole_ again.

And as Graham inched closer and Chara felt the fire wreath their hands, they realized how close that dream really was.

Destiny.

Chara’s destiny. Their second chance.

Their fingers curled around Soma’s wrist. _He_ knew, too.

Chara would gain nothing from saving Soma and everything from killing him. And if the boy was buried in the wreckage… nobody would know who snuffed out his life.

And how would Mina feel? Why would Chara _care_ how Mina felt? At least she would only lose Soma _once._ Compared to _their_ suffering, their endless suffering, Mina wouldn’t have any right to complain. Burying a friend just once was _nothing._

But Chara had only ever buried Frisk once.

And that had been _everything._

Chara could see it in Soma’s eyes. He realized what Chara was about to do at the same time Chara realized what they were about to do.

Soon Chara would be _free._ Free from the endless loop of tragedy after tragedy. Free from the curse that had consumed their life and plunged them into a hell of their own making.

It would take less than a second for Chara to do what they had to do.

To do what they had come all this way to do.

To do the right thing at long last.

As the searing blue death-beam shot out from Graham’s monstrous body, searing the ground and digging a molten furrow through the lawn, Chara threw their body over Soma’s, a glistening silvery film of flame covering each of them as the force of the impact carried both Soma and Chara out of the path of the cutting laser and safely behind one of the many ruined statues dotting the courtyard.

The shield of fire blocked the heat from the death-ray, but not all of the concussive force it carried with it. What felt like thousands of pounds of pressure slammed into Chara’s back.

Graham’s hideous winged form climbed back into the sky, spiraling around the clock tower before divebombing his prey once again.

Soma pulled himself to his feet as Chara lay on the ground struggling to breathe, their cheek pressed against the cool, wet grass as pulses of pain so great it overflowed into numbness throbbed across their back like waves crashing on a beach.

Soma was struck dumb, his mouth agape as he grabbed Chara by the arms and helped them sit up. Chara knew exactly what he wanted to ask them.

Chara coughed and caught their breath. “You see,” Chara said, reluctantly letting the visions of themselves as Dracula fade away like a half-remembered dream, “I couldn’t bear to see another tear on your dear friend Mina’s face.”

They were only being poetic. The truth was, Chara had followed their instincts to the letter… and even as their ambitions had screamed at them to seize power at long last, their body had rebelled.

It felt almost as if something was wrong with them. Perhaps Chara didn’t hate humans as much as they thought.

Soma laughed, regaining his composure. “I-I know, she’s pretty great, isn’t she?”

Chara rummaged in their pocket, grabbed the charm Mina had been carrying, and handed it to Soma. “She is. Which is why you shouldn’t try to pawn off her gifts.”

Soma sighed and took the amulet, stowing it in his pocket.

Chara looked up at the clock tower as Graham closed in. They had the creep right where they wanted. “Soma, if you could do me the favor of carrying me away… the clock tower is about to—”

The air at the base of the decaying old clock tower ignited as the clock chimed for one last time, filling the castle with light. For one brief moment, there was a sun in the twilight sky. The tower creaked and groaned and the whole thing began to teeter over like a great old redwood tree felled by Paul Bunyan himself.

Soma grabbed Chara and ran. Chara stared at the falling clock tower in awe as it enveloped Graham. It was beautiful… like watching a dictator’s statue come tumbling down.

–

The clock tower fell, torn from its moorings. Graham didn’t notice the apocalyptic groaning as wooden beams snapped like twigs and metal machinery crumpled like cardboard under tons of unhindered weight, or the growing shadow underneath him, until it was too late.

And then there were tons of stone and wood and metal bearing down on him like an avalanche, ripping through his demonic armor and tearing the fleshy cage off of him as gravity forced him to the ground. His wings flapped futilely under the load as the ground rose up to meet him faster than he could imagine.

Graham had heard that time slowed down when you fell to your death. But it didn’t. Not for him. The impact came before he had time to react, and it crushed his lungs and pulverized his spine. As he hit the ground a long and twisted piece of rebar impaled him through the stomach. His mouth filled with blood, more blood than he knew he had, and spewed across the debris-littered grass, black in the moonlight, in a wide spray stretching yards across the courtyard.

Graham’s next thought was that he was alive.

Somehow, he was alive!

Graham reached out with arms he could barely feel and pulled himself from the wreckage, tearing away from the grotesque body-machine he’d been piloting with a sickening squelch, dragging himself across the bloodied grass and soaking his pristine white suit deep, red-wine burgundy as he put more and more distance between himself and the ruin of the clock tower. The rebar running through his back and stomach tore a furrow in the churned-up dirt beneath him.

He was alive. He was still the master of this castle, he still had monsters under his command who would fight and die for him, _he was the true reincarnation of Dracula._ Graham would live on. He would realize his dream. The world would be his, an era of peace and prosperity under his rule would follow, and as long as the human race lived it would praise him as the greatest messiah who had ever drawn breath. The savior of the human race.

All he had to do was stand up.

Why couldn’t he stand up? Why wouldn’t his legs move under his command?

 _I was born destined for more than this._ Graham’s mind raced. _I was born the instant Dracula’s life was snuffed out. The clocks all stopped in the hospital the moment I took my first breath outside of my mother. I grew up a faith healer and took life as easily as I granted it—no mere charlatan but a true messiah. I was destined to be the savior, the savior of_ my _world where the strong run free and the weak and the degenerate all know their place._

_I am Graham Jones, father of the future for all humanity, and I will not be denied my birthright at any cost. Humankind belongs to me…_

Soma was standing over him, a dazed and foggy look in his eyes. The boy was in shock, the holy sword he wielded hanging at his side. He didn’t have the strength to lift it. He was weak. Graham could kill him, if only—if only he could will his legs to pull himself to his feet! Why was such a simple thing so hard?

Graham glanced behind himself, back at the pile of debris and twisted machinery that had swatted him out of the sky, and understood.

His legs and waist were several yards away, still half-buried beneath the piled-up carnage, twisted and mangled and trailing lengths of entrails onto the grass like discarded garden hoses.

Graham looked back up at Soma as, all of a sudden, everything started to feel cold, colder than he’d ever felt before, colder even than the winters in northern Maine when he’d been but a boy.

The boy reached out to him.

_Yes. That’s it, Soma. Show me kindness. The weakness of your kind._

Soma grabbed hold of the rebar protruding from Graham’s back.

_Do what you misfits do. Spare my life, nurse me back to health, believe I can be won over to your band of monsters and freaks. And then I will strike and—_

Instead of pulling the long length of steel out of Graham’s back, Soma drove it in further, planting the rebar deep in the soil as he pinned Graham down like a lepidopterist with his butterfly collection. Graham gasped, even the capacity for thought torn from him as the blossom of pain cut through the encroaching cold numbness.

He reached out to Soma with his single remaining hand. _But…_

Graham held out his trembling hand as Soma looked down at him. _But I’m…_

Soma lifted up the Claimh Solais, its blue blade shining in front of the blood-red moon.

_But I’m Dracula…_

The world was fading away around Graham. All he could see was Soma in front of him as his vision tunneled and light failed.

_Was I… Was I really never anything but a fool with delusions of grandeur?_

By the time Soma’s blade took off Graham’s head, Graham already could neither see nor hear nor smell nor taste nor feel anything. Neither could he think anything. It was bliss.

The last instant of bliss Graham would ever know.

–

As the fighting died down and the castle’s denizens slunk away to lick their wounds, Alucard found Soma as he stood over what was left of Graham, his clothes streaked and splattered with blood—fresh, bright blood over dried and encrusted bloodstains, stains layered over stains. Only a few smatterings of white remained on his coat—his prized coat, his treasured coat, the coat he’d wear no matter the weather or occasion—and his fur collar was sticky and matted.

There was a red gleam in Soma’s eyes, in his pupils like the reflected light in a cat’s eye in the middle of the night, as Soma turned around to face Alucard.

“ _Alucard.”_

Alucard’s blood ran cold. He _knew_ these eyes. And he’d _known_ he’d see them again, and he’d _known_ where and when and had been very sure about _how,_ but nothing could have prepared him for _seeing it._

Those were the eyes of his father.

Soma smiled. There were too many teeth there now, and they were _sharp,_ long fangs bulging at the sides of his mouth. He took halting steps toward Alucard, as if unsure how to move his legs. “You… you knew, Alucard. Didn’t you?” His breath was ragged and uneven, and fog drifted from his mouth as if the air around him were ice cold. He stared at Alucard with wide, wild eyes. “Didn’t you? _Son?”_

Alucard readied his blade but hoped he would not need it. “Soma Cruz—”

“All of this. _Everything_ that happened over the past three days. The attack. The plane crash. The kidnapping. _You_ called me here. _You_ brought me here. _You_ led me here.” Soma threw his arms out wide. “You knew. _They_ knew. Who _else_ knew? Everyone except _me?_ _”_

“I can explain—”

Soma’s sword met Alucard’s; the Claimh Solais clashed with the Stardust Omen with a flash of light and a shower of sparks. Both swords were preternaturally sharp: the Claimh Solais through magic, the Stardust Omen through science; both swords should have been able to effortlessly slice through the other, and so neither did. “I _asked_ you. You told me not to worry about it.”

“I told you… that you, Soma, were the master of your own destiny…” Alucard struggled to hold Soma back. He had a strength that easily matched Alucard’s own. The strength of a vampire.

The strength of Dracula.

Soma struck at Alucard with reckless abandon, his speed and strength more than a match for Alucard’s own. Alucard may have been able to parry each strike, but with each attack he defended himself from, his nerves became a little slower, his sword rose up a little later. A matter of microseconds—but they would add up soon enough. “Soma,” Alucard pleaded, “please, put down your sword and listen—”

Soma knocked Alucard back and pinned him against the wall. “How long have you been lying to me?” He brought the shining blade of the Claimh Solais closer to Alucard’s throat. The reverse side of the Stardust Omen’s blade grazed Alucard’s ear as Soma forced the sword backward. _“How long, Alucard?”_

“Put the sword down, Soma. And I’ll tell you.”

“ _Why should I trust you?”_ Soma snarled. _“You’ve always been against me, Alucard,_ always, _ever since they took my Lisa from me—!”_

 _Lisa._ So Dracula’s memories were asserting themselves within Soma’s mind. If Alucard could not talk the boy down, he would be lost. Like so many things in the castle, he’d expected this, but had been less prepared than he’d thought. “You were a person of interest to the Agency—to Neo-Ecclesia—from the moment you were born, Soma.”

Soma fell back, easing the pressure of his blade against Alucard’s neck.

“You were a suspect from the moment of your birth,” Alucard explained. “Kept a watchful eye over for your entire life. Made sure you were always in the right place at the right time. Did you think it coincidence your parents sent you off to Japan and had you live so close to the Hakuba Shrine?”

Soma continued to step backward, slowly widening the gap between himself and Alucard.

“Miss Hakuba’s parents, the original caretakers of the shrine during the Demon Castle War of 1999, were assigned to keep an eye on you.”

Alucard kept his blade raised defensively, in case Soma tried to attack him again. The boy had a head full of Dracula’s memories, feelings, and emotions, even if he wasn’t conscious of all of them, even if most of them were still simmering in the deepest recesses of his mind. Alucard couldn’t count on him to be stable or rational anymore. “Keep in mind, it was not until just a few days ago that—”

“Did Mina know?”

“Of course she didn’t. It may not have been by chance that you two met, but—”

“My _parents?”_

“No, no, they were civilians. We manipulated them, but they—”

“But _you_ were in on it. You and Yoko both.”

“ _I_ knew,” Alucard said. “But Miss Belnades was not privy to that information.”

“And you brought me here anyway.” Soma cocked his head as he paced in a slow, wide arc around Alucard. “You knew what I was and you brought me _here_ , Alucard, to the one place you should never have brought me to.”

“I had to,” Alucard replied. “You are what you are, Soma. And nothing can change that. Dracula’s soul, cursed to wander the Earth, was incarnated into a human body on August 21, 2017. Whether or not you came here, that would still be true.” He sheathed his sword and took a few tentative steps toward Soma, his hands held out. “It was your destiny, Soma. But as I said to you… If you do not _wish_ to be Dracula, then—”

“What is this?” Soma let out a quick, frantic laugh. “Wh—Did you think I’d be better off _knowing?_ Or did you… did you bring me here to…” His chest quaked as he convulsed with laughter. “O-oh, my goodness, oh my god. You… you wanted to bring Dracula back all along.”

“No, I—” _I wanted to bring you here,_ Alucard wanted to say, _so you could see and overcome your past_ _life…_

“Didn’t you, Alucard?”

Soma attacked, and Alucard tried to eject the Stardust Omen from its pointlessly-overdesigned sheath only for the mechanism to jam. He parried Soma’s strike with the sheath still clamped around his blade, the grind of metal on metal throwing sparks into his face.

“ _Didn’t you?”_

Alucard shifted into bat form, rising high into the air on his wings, out of range of Soma’s attacks. Soma stared up at him from below and shouted at him: “You helped kill me for good thirty-six years ago and then you _missed_ me, didn’t you, _son?_ Missed me enough to engineer this whole scenario, all to gratify your ennui!”

 _He’s gone mad,_ Alucard thought, fear flooding his mind. _I must subdue him—quickly._

As Alucard coasted upward, Soma transformed as well, shifting into a white bat and climbing into the air. The courtyard spun around Alucard as he and Soma flew in narrowing spirals around each other, dipping and ducking through what little remained of the clock tower’s torn skeleton.

Soma rose above Alucard and transformed back in midair. He snatched Alucard out of the sky, his fingers—cold and clammy now, with fingers sharp enough to be claws—grasping around Alucard’s furry neck. The two of them dropped like a stone.

Soma landed on his feet, still holding Alucard by the neck and squeezing. Alucard couldn’t suck enough air into his tiny lungs, and his heart beat like a hummingbird’s even as the rest of his body grew limp and slow. “I understand,” Soma said. “You devoted your life to killing me, Alucard. And then what? What happens next? What else would you do with your infinite life? You _wanted_ this!”

As the strength drained from Alucard’s body, he shifted into a cloud of mist, slipping effortlessly out of Soma’s grasp. He coalesced as soon as he was free, collapsing onto the floor, and the tip of Soma’s sword was instantly at his throat.

The Claimh Solais pressed against Alucard’s throat. It didn’t break the skin, but it left blood on Alucard’s neck all the same. He could smell the stench of steaming, boiling-away blood emanating from the blade.

Soma thrust the blade forward, and Alucard felt himself choke.

But the blade did not pierce his flesh. The light of the Claimh Solais went out as the blade dulled itself—The sword had rejected its master.

Soma let the sword clatter to the floor and pulled the Stardust Omen away from Alucard, ripping the sheath off with his bare hands.

“Soma.” Alucard let his racing heartbeat slow. “I understand that you’re very confused right now. You have thoughts and memories in your head that aren’t your own. It must be hard to keep everything straight. Just calm down. Take a deep breath. I can help you.”

“‘Soma?’” Soma stared down at Alucard, a feral grin twisting his face, his eyes shining with a blood-red light. “Soma who?”

The air froze in Alucard’s lungs. _Soma, no…_

Soma licked his bloody lips, running his tongue along his sharp ivory fangs. “Don’t you recognize me, Alucard?”

He’d known what Soma Cruz carried within him, and he’d agreed to let Soma tag along, hoping that the boy could overcome the darkness in his soul and forge a new path unchained to his previous life. Alucard had meant to guide him through the castle, help him face his origins, and emerge as himself.

“Your own father…”

Alucard, with all his preoccupations with Julius and Solomon’s Court and Graham, had failed. Because staring down at him with a sword at his throat was…

–

Soma jolted awake, a drum beating in his head, his heart pounding. When had he passed out? The last thing he remembered was—oh, but his head throbbed so hard he could barely put the pieces together. There had just been a—Graham was dead, and—There was something, some sort of _aura_ welling up inside him—Everything had gone sort of… fuzzy.

Soma tried to collect himself despite the killer migraine, the room spinning around him. Where was everyone else? And where was _he,_ for that matter? And why did his chest ache so much?

He sat up, his hands roving over the dusty wooden floor, as his eyes began to adjust to the darkness. It was a small room, dusty shelves lining the walls, cobwebs stretching across the ceiling and quivering in the corners. There were no doors—but set into one wall, surrounded by bare shelving, was a tall, thin window.

Soma pushed himself up and climbed to his feet, holding onto the shelves for support. His whole body tingled—but it wasn’t _pain,_ just an odd feeling inside himself. As he stood up, he rubbed his forehead with both hands—no sweat, no blood. All of his wounds had vanished, and even his clothes felt as pristine as if they were freshly-washed… although he could’ve sworn they didn’t fit as well as he remembered—a little too wide across the shoulders and too tight across the chest.

His chest hurt.

His hands slid down his face. He wasn’t just fully-healed—his skin even felt softer. Not a trace of stubble, or even razor burn. He’d always wanted to get a shave this close.

Wherever he was, whatever was going on, at least it had a silver lining.

Soma crept toward the window and peered through it. On the other side was a vast, dimly-lit room filled with towering bookshelves—and a rack stocked with a vast and diverse collection of potions and tonics.

And _that_ meant…

Soma was on the other side of the mirror. Was he…

Had he _become_ his reflection? Was _that_ why he felt different all of a sudden?

 _If I’m in my library, I can just will myself back to reality,_ he thought. He squeezed his eyes shut. _Focus._

Soma opened his eyes. The scenery hadn’t changed at all—except now there was a man in his library.

“Hey!” Soma shouted, pounding against the glass. “Who are you? What are you doing in my head?”

The mystery man, the stranger in Soma’s head, turned around.

He wore a long forest-green robe that reached down to his ankles with a short coat of white fur draped over his shoulders, and his long, shoulder-length ebony hair framed a face that, despite its ashen complexion—so pale it was as if someone had sucked out all of the pigment—looked exactly like Soma’s, with the same nose, same brow, same chin, same ears, same dark eyes. But his dark eyes burned like hot coals, and when he smiled, a pair of fangs poked over his pale bluish bottom lip.

The stranger stepped closer to the mirror, and Soma drove his fist with all his might against the glass. It barely even rattled in its frame. _“Who are you?”_ he shouted.

The stranger wagged his finger, then brought it to his lips with a sinister smile. Soma felt his voice die in his throat. And then the stranger stuck his hand into his cloak, winced, and brought his hand out again, his pale, spindly index finger slick and dripping with blood.

And he began to write on the glass, scarlet blood forming letters in bold, blocky handwriting. From right to left, first there was an A, then an L, then a U, C…

And when Soma looked at the word written on the mirror, he understood exactly who he was looking at—and what had happened to him.
    
    
      **ꓷЯAƆU⅃A**
    

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IT'S ME, ALUCARD!
> 
> IT WAS ME ALL ALONG, ALUCARD!
> 
> [YOU ALL BOUGHT IT! EVEN MY IMMEDIATE FAMILY BOUGHT IT!](https://youtu.be/kujo7V9m0gk)


	41. Dance of Illusions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, [the fight against Dracula begins.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tBM1TwYbc8Y)
> 
> I don't usually say this, but I suggest that you read Soma!Dracula's lines in the voice of [Rau le Creuset from the English dub of Gundam Seed.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Awfq95GSSo)

Asriel picked himself up off the grass, every inch of his body aching and sore, and saw Soma and Alucard standing face to face—wait, no, what was Soma doing? Why did he have a sword at Alucard’s throat? _“Soma!”_

Willowrot and one of the werewolves—Warp, or maybe Woof—helped him up. The other wolfman was off in the corner dealing with Chara, who seemed okay, if a little shaken.

“ _Soma, what are you doing?”_ Asriel called out. Had he gone mad?

Soma looked at him and Asriel felt his blood run cold. He could tell from the first glance that it wasn’t Soma he was looking at. It was _someone else._

And even if Asriel couldn’t pick up _who_ he was instantly, the monsters who’d lived in this castle could tell simply from a glance.

“L-Lord Dracula,” Willowrot stammered, her voice quavering.

Dracula smiled. “That’s right. Your lord and master, reborn at long last.” He held out his arms. “You all see, it was me all along! All this time, the great and terrible Dracula was right under your noses! Now… you there, Willowshoot, was it? Are you here to pay me tribute?”

Willowrot took a deep breath and marched toward Soma—toward Dracula. “We, er… We have some demands for you!”

In the distance, Chara’s eyes grew wide, and they fervently began to gesture at Willowrot. The nonverbal message was simple— _back off, back off, mission abort!_

“For starters,” Willowrot began, as Dracula regarded her with a slightly amused look and crossed his arms, “w-we want to be paid for our services to you in your absence, and also all the rest of the time…”

As Willowrot stepped closer, Chara became even more frantic.

“We are prepared,” Willowrot continued, “to initiate a castle-wide general strike if our demands—”

Before Asriel could force himself into action, Chara tackled the dryad to the ground as Dracula’s sword cut a glittering arc through the air, a spray of blood trailing in its wake as it cut through their side.

_Chara._

Seconds later, although it felt like an eternity, Asriel’s fist collided with Dracula’s face.

Although the impact forced Dracula backward, he was unfazed by the assault; no pain registered on his face. Asriel pushed onward anyway, but Dracula in his new body was supernaturally agile. He seemed to wink out of existence and reappear just out of reach, Asriel’s fists passing through fading-away afterimages left in his wake.

Asriel’s magical fire condensed into a beam of golden-white light, impaling a row of ghostly afterimages and tearing them apart. Where once Asriel’s flames had flickered and roiled, they now were hard and pure like concentrated starlight and blazed white through a rainbow haze as they formed into a glittering sword. With each motion of his wrist the blade hummed like a crystal wineglass.

“ _Soma!”_ he shouted out. _“Soma, can you hear me?”_

“ _Oh, I doubt it.”_ Dracula was standing behind Asriel now, and he realized it but an instant too late as a cold hand dug into the back of his neck.

Asriel had fought an enemy like this before, and neurons that hadn’t fired for over ten years kicked into high gear. He tore himself free before Dracula could rip out his spine, lashing out with a spinning kick. Golden fire met black fire and a whirlwind of sparks spiraled through the air.

The blade of the Stardust Omen whistled and hummed as it swung. The technological wonder—or terror—clashed with Asriel’s starlight sword, colliding with a flash of ghostly blue light like Cherenkov radiation. The Stardust Omen’s black blade crackled, lances of blue lightning snapping through the air and crawling over the dilapidated terraced gardens surrounding the courtyard.

“Soma can’t hear you, Your Highness,” Dracula taunted, laughing as the blades wrestled for dominance. “He’s gone. Forever. Why not just run along and leave me to my castle? I have _business_ to attend to.”

“Let the boy go, Dracula.” Asriel growled. Dracula squinted his burning red eyes against the glare of Asriel’s sword and pushed forward, and Asriel felt his feet slip backward. But he held fast. “He had a life of his own. You have no right to take it from him!”

“Fool of a king! He had a life of his own, did he? _Ha!”_ Dracula sneered. “I lived and died for nine hundred years. I’ve seen civilizations rise and fall. _History_ happens while I nap! Soma Cruz was _seventeen._ A grain of sand in a desert!” And as Asriel poured more of his strength into the sword, Dracula vanished and he tumbled forward, barely managing to swing his sword behind him and block the strike he knew would be coming from behind.

“Soma Cruz,” the vampire lord continued, “may as well never have existed at all!”

Asriel missed. The two blades slipped past each other, the air burning inside the fraction-of-an-inch gap between the both of them, and the Stardust Omen cut a deep diagonal cut from Asriel’s shoulder to his hip.

“ _There never really_ was _a Soma Cruz! It was all an illusion!”_

Asriel scurried away, the starlight sword humming in the air. Dracula raised his sword, and Asriel, on the defensive and racked with pain, pulled himself to his feet and stumbled away.

“ _It was all an illusion—and you fell for it, King Asriel the Foolish, hook, line, and sinker!”_

Dracula’s attacks grew harder and harder to dodge; not only was Asriel losing stamina—and fast—but as Dracula grew more accustomed to his body, his powers and agility were rapidly growing.

Asriel pulled away, flying across the courtyard to put some distance between himself and Dracula as he struggled to catch his breath. “Just let him go, Dracula! I know you can do it!”

“Or what?” Dracula’s eyes glittered, and Asriel felt the cold tendrils of fear wrap around his heart.

“Or… Or I’ll…” Asriel felt his teeth start to chatter, and his voice faltered. It was all happening again. Another pair of demonic red eyes. Another person he couldn’t save.

Another friend whose body had been stolen.

Dracula lunged forward. “Is it so vital to protect this child? Soma is nothing, after all, but an extension of me, and I have every right to retract that extension for good,” he taunted as his sword clashed once again with Asriel’s, sending a tremor up his arms. Asriel’s arm ached once more, the bones remembering how they had snapped in two so many years ago.

“Of course it’s vital,” Asriel panted. “Soma deserves his own life—and you have no right to rob him of it!” Asriel pulled himself back, rocketing away to further grow the distance between himself and his foe, and lobbed a salvo of fireballs at Dracula.

“So you keep saying!”

Dracula dodged the bursts of rainbow-tinged gold fire with ease, and as the flames blossomed, a white bat sailed through them, smoke trailing from the tips of its alabaster wings. Once clear of the flames, the bat metamorphosed into Dracula, and blade met blade once again, and again, and again.

“Why care so much about _his_ fate?” A wicked, fanged grin tore across Dracula’s bloodied face. “Is it, perhaps, because you see in him the _son_ you’re too _afraid_ to have?”

“ _LET GO OF HIM!”_ In a rage Asriel struck Dracula, his blade cutting through and cauterizing both of the vampire lord’s eyes; but as the blade passed, the wound it left in its wake already began to heal. By the time Asriel had completed the sword’s arc, Dracula already had both his eyes back.

Dracula laughed as his black blade locked against Asriel’s. Asriel was forced to kneel as Dracula’s strength bore down on him. “Oh, I’ve struck a nerve, have I? Let me guess—you were _just like_ Soma when _you_ were a child, weren’t you?”

Asriel ground his teeth against each other as his own blade came close enough to singe his fur.

“Alone, I bet. So, so _very_ alone. I bet you were lucky to have _one_ friend. And were _your_ parents never there when you needed them, either?”

“No, that’s—”

“Oh, no, make no mistake, yours _loved_ you.” Dracula’s wide grin and blazing eyes had turned Soma’s countenance devilish. “But you couldn’t _see_ much of them, could you? They were so, so busy, and they left you so alone… So you took one look at Soma, saw a boy who needed _just_ what _you_ needed when _you_ were but a child… and you wanted to fill that void in his heart, didn’t you, Asriel?”

Asriel forced his blade forward, the ringing in his ear growing to a roar as he drove Dracula back.

With a laugh Dracula pulled out of the way, sending Asriel sailing forward on his own momentum and striking him across the back once more. Asriel writhed in agony as he skidded across the ground, dirt and mud further staining his fur.

“But there _is_ no void in Soma’s heart.” Dracula approached Asriel, swinging the Stardust Omen through the air as he stepped closer. “Because there _is_ no Soma. There is only _me._ And I _have_ no heart. For I am Vlad Tepes Dracula, Lord of Shadows!”

The wounds on Asriel’s back screamed as he struggled to take a step forward. The memory of strong cold winds buffeted him. Here in the perpetual night, in the ruined castle, against a sadistic villain who’d stolen the life and body of someone he cared for…

There _had_ to be some way to break through Dracula’s stranglehold.

“Soma. I _know_ you’re in there. You _have_ to be.” Asriel pulled himself up, ignoring the pain as best he could—just like old times. “I know you can hear me in there, Soma!”

Soma was more like Asriel than he’d ever imagined, chained to an evil locked within his soul. And in that fact lay hope. “I know exactly what it’s like to have a dark side,” Asriel said, “a creature of evil you’ve spent so long being that your _real_ self is a drop in the ocean by comparison.”

Dracula came closer.

The words nearly froze in his throat, but Asriel pressed on. “I’ve _been_ that. I’ve _been_ it and I’ve _fought_ it, Soma.” He held out his arm, his palm upturned. “You can, too! You just have to be strong!”

Dracula’s eyes widened, the red light in them going out. As he took a step back, the sword fell from his hand and clattered to the ground. “A—Asriel?” he called out in a shaking, quiet, almost _timid_ voice.

Asriel’s spirits lifted.

“Asriel, you’re hurt…” Soma’s quavering voice reflected the agony he must have been feeling in his heart. “I’m sorry, I’ve been trying _so_ hard to fight back, I’m so sorry I couldn’t make it in time… I’m sorry I’m weak…”

“Soma…?” Asriel knew better to take him at his word—it could too easily be a trick—but a part of him wanted so hard to _believe_ that Soma was still there that the starlight sword faded away in his hand. “It’s okay! Soma, is it really you?”

“It’s me!” Soma threw his arms out. “It’s me! I’m free now! And I heard what Dracula said about you, and—and I love you, too!”

Soma ran toward Asriel with open arms, and as he came closer Asriel noticed that he was smiling just a little _too_ widely, the glimmer in his eyes just a little _too_ bright.

It wasn’t Soma.

Asriel managed to conjure a partisan just in time, and Soma impaled himself on the fiery blade, gasping in surprise as the long polearm held him just out of reach.

“Asriel!” Soma screamed, his agony just a little too fake this time. “H—How could you? Asriel! I thought you loved me!” Crocodile tears streamed down his face. “You—you’re just a _murderer!_ Just like the rest of your family!”

Asriel stepped back, planting a forest of partisans in the dirt and impaling Dracula on them as they burst from the ground like trees caught in a time-lapse video. Howling in agony, Dracula took the form of a bat and sailed into the air.

Asriel staggered on his feet, struggling to remain upright. His heart ached. Nearly everything Dracula had said had been right. And if Soma really _was_ gone…

Then Asriel was a failure.

Dracula swooped down, the alabaster wings reshaping into arms and a fluttering once-white coat as he transformed back into Soma’s body in midair, wreathed in black flames, and Asriel found himself rooted to the spot. He couldn’t move.

Before Dracula could pounce on him, a silver blur careened into Asriel. Asriel found himself riding on the back of a giant silver wolf, clutching at the beast’s fur and hanging on for dear life as it ran across the courtyard and into the castle’s corridors, running alongside Chara’s fellow revolutionaries.

Chara, riding on the back of one of their werewolf lieutenants, smiled and gave Asriel a weak and unsteady thumbs-up.

The wolf tossed Asriel off its back and with a shake of its mane became Alucard, wreathed in silver and black. The Claimh Solais, dull and rusted, hung heavy in his pale hand. Asriel wondered if there was anything Alucard _couldn’t_ turn into.

“I am sorry.” Alucard handed the Claimh Solais to Asriel, his weariness more than apparent on his ageless and impeccable face. In Asriel’s hands the blade grew light as a feather and impeccably sharp as its blue light shined forth. “This,” he said, “will be hard for both of us, it seems.”

Asriel glanced at the monsters to his back. “You three. Take Chara and run.”

“I’m fine!” Chara protested, their face screwed up in agony as they tried to stand up. “Besides, Alucard, you could use a sword, couldn’t you?”

Before Chara could perform any sort of magnanimous gesture, one of the werewolves presented Alucard with his own sword, a slate-gray-black blade with edges glowing a bloody red. “This is Durandal,” he said. “A sword of legend.”

Alucard took the blade and swung it single-handedly despite it being a two-handed sword. It left red afterimages in the air as if blood flew in its wake with every swing. “You have my thanks.”

Asriel caught his breath and fell to his knees, resting his forehead against the Claimh Solais’ sapphire-encrusted pommel. Soma… the poor boy. How could things have gone so wrong?

“Asriel.” Willowrot put a willowy hand on Asriel’s shoulder, her twiggy fingers clutching at his tattered coat. “Can’t you take away Dracula’s powers? Like you did to Noxifer, back in—”

“It doesn’t work that way,” Asriel retorted, feeling the still air in the marble-lined gallery grow cold. _“Aura regia_ isn’t—”

 _But…_ Asriel thought, in a flash of inspiration, _if my ability could strip Dracula of his powers, if even for a moment… could Soma take control again?_

Dracula stepped into the hallway, dragging the Stardust Omen at his side and effortlessly cutting through the solid marble floor. “Ah, there you are. It’s so wonderful, my friends. My son. To see you so battered, so weary, to see you having exhausted your strength against a wall that despite your best efforts shows no more cracks than before…”

Chara waved their entourage away. “Willowrot, Warp, Woof, please find a place to hide… and make it a _good_ one this time.”

The trio sharply saluted and scampered off into the depths of the castle.

Asriel began to run, his heart pounding in his chest. Alucard flanked him, Durandal in his hand. Asriel made to swing the Claimh Solais, prompting Dracula to throw up his own blade to parry it—

And then Alucard’s blade swung up and struck the blade of the Stardust Omen, throwing it aside.  
Dracula’s leg lashed out, sending obsidian-black flames through the air, and by forcing Asriel and Alucard to leap back he gained a moment to retreat and pull his blade back into a defensive position over his chest.

Blade met blade met blade as Asriel, Alucard, and Dracula dueled. Red, blue, and aquamarine sparks sailed through the air. All Asriel needed was a clear shot at Dracula’s chest, but even though he didn’t know what Asriel planned to do, Dracula knew better than to leave his heart unguarded.

“This is _your_ fault, you know!” Dracula shouted to both of them over the sound of steel meeting steel meeting steel. “Both of you! You, Alucard, you wished to mentor this little boy with his dark powers so much like your own—but all that went out of your mind when you realized you could _rescue_ your old _friend_ instead…”

Asriel’s arms were starting to grow weak as his sword clashed again and again against the Stardust Omen. He needed what little strength he had to throw toward _aura regia,_ his last hail mary play. If this wore on too long…

“And _you,_ Asriel! For all your talk and all your promises to Soma, _you_ left him alone, too! Torn between two people you cared for—and you chose to run after the _wrong_ one! Some father _you_ turned out to be!”

Asriel’s next strike nearly tore Dracula’s arm off.

“Struck a nerve, did I?” Dracula laughed as he continued to parry Asriel and Alucard’s furious strikes. “Admit it! The so-called Soma Cruz was desperate for your guidance, and either one of you could have played the role of a mentor! But because both of you, _both_ of you failed so, so miserably, that tiny shred of ‘humanity’ you called Soma Cruz was so easily overcome!”

With a roar Alucard threw himself at Dracula, only for the vampire lord to deliver a vicious kick to his stomach, sending him sprawling across the floor.

As Dracula kicked Alucard away, a burst of silvery fire knocked the Stardust Omen out of Dracula’s hand and sent it sailing through the air.

Chara slipped behind Dracula and pinned him from behind, holding the vampire lord back despite his struggles. A ghostly-silver saber blade tore through Dracula’s side.

Steam billowed from Dracula’s mouth, nose, ears, and eyes, but even as Chara’s Invisible Sun burned him away from the inside, his body regenerated. Dracula nearly threw Chara off, lashing out and cutting with his bare hand into their stomach as if the side of his hand were a knife, but despite the sprays of blood spurting from Chara’s perforated abdomen like a leak in a barrel and coating the cloudy marble tiles lining the floor, Chara held fast, their teeth gritted with determination as they dug their saber deeper and twisted the blade.

Asriel looked into his sibling’s red eyes as they peeked over Dracula’s shoulder. Chara nodded, resolute and determined despite the pain.

Asriel didn’t need to say anything to thank Chara for the stand they’d taken. The glance the two of them shared spoke a thousand unsaid words.

Asriel threw himself at Dracula, grabbing him by the arm and driving his free hand into his heart. He cracked his forehead against Dracula’s just to disorient him, his curled horns bruising and splitting the skin and knocking against bone.

As the dark lord reeled back, Asriel channeled all his might into his open palm against Dracula’s chest, and it blazed with the light of _aura regia._ A golden light that was almost _holy._

Dracula screamed in terror and agony. As the screams pierced Asriel’s ear, he could see Soma’s soul. He hadn’t known what to expect, but the orb glowed as bright as the brightest of stars: pure, hard, and in colors far outside the range of sight.

It was _beautiful._

Asriel was so transfixed, he didn’t notice that he wasn’t seeing this soul through his mind’s eye, as he always had; a black abyss had opened up in Soma’s chest from which the light shone forth. An inexorable force tugged at him from within the unfathomable void, and Asriel realized far too late what he was looking at as his hand clasped around the star-bright orb and he found himself unable to draw his arm back. Alucard grabbed at his other arm, trying to pull Asriel away as the soul drew him closer and closer to the abyss.

A quasar, or quasi-stellar object, was the brightest object in the known universe, brighter than the brightest stars. For decades they had been observed without astronomers knowing exactly what they were and what made them give off such massive amounts of energy. It hadn’t been until the latter half of the twentieth century that scientists had determined their true nature: the accretion disks of supermassive black holes resting in the centers of galaxies.

Soma Cruz’s soul was not the blinding white star Asriel was seeing, but rather the darkness within.

It was a black hole.

And Asriel had already fallen beyond its event horizon.

For the second time that day Asriel’s heart was gripped with the fear that came with the sight of a total solar eclipse.

Asriel, Alucard, and Chara alike were powerless to resist the overwhelming gravity of Dracula’s black heart, and all three were drawn into the singularity.

–

Julius Belmont took a deep breath as he, Hammer, and Mina finally made it to the front yard, a gaggle of the castle’s strange revolutionaries at their sides. He’d never thought he’d ever _not_ be trying to kill a denizen of Castlevania, but these were strange times.

He looked back at the crumbling castle. The clock tower had fallen—and hopefully Graham and his sinister ambitions had been buried beneath it. _Alucard,_ he thought, _you’re a huge_ _asshole_ _and I don’t think I’ve forgiven you for napping while I_ _drifted_ _my way around the world. But we’ve got a lot of catching up to do… so you’d better not be far behind._

A tiny yellow lizard in a white coat appeared out of nowhere, a scaly claw pressed to her throat. “You’re okay? That’s great! Now listen, Undyne, you’ve gotta g-get over here as fast as possible, c-cuz we’re—Mina! Wow! It’s you!” She peered at Mina through thick, horn-rimmed glasses, her finger falling from her neck.“W-whoa, you look really, _really_ beat up,” she stammered, producing a first-aid kit from her side. “Where’s everyone else?”

“Not far behind, I hope,” said Hammer. “By the way, hi. I’m Hammer.” He shook the little lizard’s hand. “You’re Doctor Alphys, aren’t you?”

“Well, of course,” she replied, blushing, “m-my reputation _must_ precede me, right?”

“Yeah, we all use your body armor, you know!”

Alphys’ expression soured. “Yes. I know. Seriously, though—where’s everyone else? I’ve been _t-trying_ to _t-tell_ you knuckleheads, we only have a few minutes until—”

The air cleared and the enormous, close-up moon vanished from the sky, and as the clouds dissolved they revealed a periwinkle blue sky, bathing the castle in sunlight.

“T-the e-eclipse ends,” Alphys finished, forlorn. She hung her head.

Julius sniffed the air. It wasn’t the miasma surrounding Dracula’s castle. It was clear, fresh mountain air. The sky was nearly cloudless save for a few cottony wisps and the sun was still a crescent in the sky. Totality had ended.

And Dracula’s castle wasn’t bound to the eclipse anymore. It had been pulled out—into the _real_ world.

Julius felt a pang of fear. The only way this could have happened was if somebody had wrested control of the castle.

Hammer clapped his hands. “H-hey! We’re back in the real world!” He wiped sweat from his bald head. “Home free, boys and girls.” Then he saw the drawbridge and the impassably tall castle walls encircling the yard and his face fell. “Almost.”

“Don’t you worry!” Alphys piped up. “Now that we’re in the real world, I’ll call the Guard here to break down the drawbridge and…”

The nerdy little scientist’s voice faded away in Julius’ ears as he tuned the rest of the world out.

Dracula was back. Julius could feel his heart racing. This wasn’t supposed to happen.

A young boy with white hair staggered into the courtyard, resting his hands on his knees as he gasped for air, his clothes soaked in blood. It was Soma. But where was everyone else?

“Soma!” Mina rushed forward, but Julius took her by the arm before she could get far. There was something fishy about him. “Soma, you’re okay! Where’s Mr. Asriel and the others?”

Soma looked up at her, his face stricken with fear. “Oh, Mina,” he moaned, shaking his head, “it was horrible! They’re—”

He stood up. “They’re all dead! Asriel, Alucard, Chara, Undyne, Yoko—They’re all dead! All of them!” He drew a black sword from his side, the blade crackling with lightning.

“ _Oh, shit,”_ Julius heard Alphys mutter.

“Every single one of them,” Soma cackled, “they’re all dead, mangled, and eviscerated, and their screams of agony were the most beautiful music I’d ever heard!”

“Soma, no!” Mina cried. “The _omamori_ —the amulet I—”

Soma drew a glittering silver pendant from his jacket pocket. “Oh, this?” He held it in his upturned palm, then closed his hand into a fist. A second later he opened his fist and a fine silvery powder trickled out onto the ground. “Oops. I think I broke it. Clumsy ol’ me.”

Mina let out a shuddering sob and clasped her hands over her mouth. “Soma…” she moaned.

“That’s not Soma.” Julius pulled out his whip and cracked it through the air, noticing with quite some satisfaction that the gunshot-like sound of the whip slicing through the air made the boy flinch. “Bastard!” he spat. “How many lives have you taken here, _Dracula?”_

“ _Soma, please, you must be in there somewhere!”_ Mina shouted as Hammer grabbed hold of her and held her back, lifting her off her feet.

Dracula’s eyes glowed red. “Do you remember how many loaves of bread you’ve ever eaten? Oh, how wonderful it is to see you again, Julius. When we last met, you were the youngest of your bloodline to do battle with me. Now…”

Julius had to admit, he didn’t want to fight Dracula. The last time he’d been in this situation, he’d been in his prime, fighting at full strength. Now he was an old man with aching limbs and creaking joints who drank and smoked too much to dull the pain of being alive—and the fact that Dracula was now just _standing_ there in full daylight meant that _this_ Dracula was far, far more dangerous than any vampire hunter could ever dare imagine.

But of course, Julius was a Belmont, and what did Belmonts do? They fought Dracula and killed him dead.

“You should be more scared than that, Dracula.” Julius drew a flask of holy water from within his longcoat. “I’m going to be the first Belmont since Simon to kill you twice.”

Dracula bared his fangs, a feral grin twisting Soma’s face. “We’ll see… old man.”

–

_Demon child._

_What are you? A boy? A girl? A devil?_

_What human has red eyes?_

_How else could that hellspawn have eyes like those? You fucking witch!_

_What’s that in your hands? Chocolate? Give that to me. Give it here! Let go!_

_Walk it off, you little monster. It doesn’t hurt_ that _much._

_Bet if I dumped you in the baptismal font you’d just shrivel up and burn away, wouldn’t you?_

_I don’t like those eyes of yours. I should’ve drowned you in the river when I had the chance._

_Look at him scream! He really_ is _a devil!_

_Are you okay, human?_

_Chara, huh? That's a nice name. M—My name is Asriel._

_Y—Your eyes… they’re r-really pretty, y’know._

_Chara was only eleven when they found the dusty old book, tucked away on a forgotten shelf in an ignored corner of a dingy library, that would change their life forever._

“ _Asriel, read this,” they said._

_Asriel followed their lead. “A human may never take the soul of a monster,” he recited, “for they are small and ef… eff…”_

“ _Ephemeral.”_

“… _Ephemeral. But a monster can partake of the soul of a human, for it persisteth after death…” Asriel glanced over at Chara, seeming less than impressed. They stared at the yellowed page Chara had opened the tome up to. “I don’t get it.”_

_Chara patted him on his fuzzy head, then guided his eyes across the page with their finger. “Look at what it says here.”_

“ _Monster souls and human souls, working in unison—”_

“ _You pronounced that wrong,” Chara pointed out._

“ _Oops. Sorry.” Asriel grinned sheepishly. “Uh… how do you say it, then?”_

_Chara shrugged. “Dunno. I’ve only ever seen it written down.”_

“ _Then how do you—”_

“ _Go on.”_

 _Asriel sighed. “Monster souls and human souls, working in…_ unison _… can achieve miracles.”_

“ _Miracles,” Chara repeated. They pointed up. “We could get past the_ Barrier, _Asriel!”_

“ _A monster can…” Asriel pondered what he’d read. “But… but there_ aren’t _any human souls down here. ‘Cept for… uh…”_

 _Chara slammed the book shut, startling their adoptive brother. “We can’t let_ anyone _know about this,” they said, their voice falling to a conspiratorial whisper. “If anyone found out, every monster in the kingdom would want my head!”_

“ _That couldn’t happen!” The terror striking Asriel’s face made it very clear he was entertaining the possibility, though. “Mom and Dad would never let anyone hurt you!”_

“ _They could try.” Chara thought for a moment. “If I die… I think_ you _should have my soul, Asriel.”_

“ _M-me?” Asriel pointed at himself, bemused._

“ _We’d be together forever,” Chara explained, awe seeping into their voice. “Immortal. And strong. We could leave the mountain. Tear down the Barrier. Free the kingdom. We’d be_ heroes, _Asriel, the greatest in the world—they’d sing our names for thousands of years!”_

_There was a sparkle in Asriel’s eyes, and Chara knew then that he was onboard._

“ _That’ll be a long time from now, I hope,” Asriel said. “I mean, I don’t want you to die any time soon!” He laughed nervously._

_Chara wasn’t so sure. It had been years since they’d seen the sun; their already-pale skin had turned white as milk since they’d come down here. They couldn’t wait until they were old and crusty._

_And they had an idea._

_Months later, their plan came to fruition._

_Weak and racked with fever, Chara mashed the yellow-gold flower petals between their teeth and choked them down. “Water,” they rasped, and Asriel obliged, pressing a glass full of ice-cold water to their lips. They took a sip and swished the meager mouthful around their mouth, loosening anything that might have gotten stuck in their teeth and swallowing it. It hurt. Everything, in fact, hurt. Even breathing._

“ _More,” they demanded. Asriel tipped the glass a little higher. Water splashed across their lips and trickled down their chin. “Asriel, it’s so hot.” They tried to lift their arm and pull off their bedsheets but couldn’t._

_Asriel put a paw to their forehead and Chara sighed in relief. His touch was cool on their skin. The hand withdrew, and a second later Asriel replaced it with a freshly-wetted washcloth, and it was bliss._

“ _It’s almost time,” Chara muttered, feeling the poison wreak its havoc anew on their insides. “Everything’s gonna be alright soon.”_

“ _We can’t keep doing this.” Asriel’s voice cracked._

“ _It’s the only way,” Chara insisted, feeling their lucidity return to them as the soaked washcloth sat heavily on their burning, feverish forehead. “We can’t stop here.”_

“ _We have to.”_

“ _Don’t you_ dare—”

“ _I feel so evil doing this to you, Chara. M-Mom and Dad are gonna find out s-sooner or later, and—”_

“ _But it won’t matter. Asriel, it’s not death… it’s rebirth. Nothing’s going to stop us. We’re going to… to… save the world…”_

“ _I-If you live through the night,” Asriel retorted, his voice trembling, “I’ll tell Mom. And I’ll stop, and you’ll get better, and I… I’ll…”_

_Chara smiled. “I won’t.” Their heavy eyelids sank lower, and the tiny bedroom their world had shrank to fill blurred and faded to black. “It’s gonna be a new age… the age of Asriel and Chara…”_

“ _No.” Asriel shook their shoulders. Chara’s head flopped like a ragdoll’s. “No, Chara, please,_ please, _Chara, stay with me…”_

“Stay with me! Chara! _Chara!_ You have to stay determined!”

Chara cracked their eyes open. And there he was. Asriel. Older, taller, wearier, still manic with worry.

Asriel took them by the shoulders and held them up. Chara felt vertigo seize them, and the dark chamber spun around them as their head pounded. Their recall of the past few minutes was shaky, but…

Oh, right. Dracula.

Chara started to close their eyes again. “No, Chara!” Asriel gave them a swift yet light tap on the cheek. “Don’t you dare! Don’t you fall asleep on me!”

Were they _dying?_ It didn’t hurt like last time.

No, it hurt—in their heart. The rest of their body was numb, their veins full of ice.

“Asriel,” they choked, shivering, teeth chattering. “Hi.”

“No. No, no, no, no, _no, no, no…”_ Asriel hugged Chara closer, burying his snout in their chest. Warmth. “Please. _Please._ You were always a handful, Chara, and you know, you’re a real asshole sometimes, but—but—” He took a few seconds to sob wordlessly.

“S-sorry.”

Asriel wailed and clutched them closer, sensing that for Chara to say the “S-word” they must have been very close to death indeed. “Chara, you’re my _family,_ and I miss you, and—and I’ve lost you and I lost Dad and I lost Frisk and g-goodness knows who else I’ll lose, but I don’t want to lose you twice, please, _please!_ _”_

It hurt to breathe. With weak and trembling hands, Chara patted Asriel on the back. “Don’t you worry. When has death ever… ever stuck to me?”

Asriel pulled his head up. “Alucard. Can’t you _do_ something?”

Alucard was taken aback. _“‘_ _Do_ something…?’” he repeated.

“Bite them! Make them—y-you know, like _you!”_

Alucard shook his head. “I cannot transmit vampirism, Your Highness. A dhampyr is sterile, like a mule—”

“That’s not the only thing you two have in common!” Asriel snapped. He held Chara closer, his fingers digging into their back. “I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry…”

 _Haven’t I suffered enough? Can’t I rest?_ Chara could feel their fingers and toes going cold, and knew the rest of their body would soon follow. “Maybe I don’t want to. I just don’t want it to hurt anymore,” they choked.

Asriel kept weeping over them; he’d always been the type who’d cry at the drop of a hat. _“Hang on, Chara, please…”_

 _You are the future of humans and monsters._ Their father’s voice, deep, low, and soothing, rang in Chara’s head. _Stay determined, Chara!_

So this was really it then. After countless false starts over the past day… it was finally time to join the rest of their family.

They closed their eyes and let everything go black.

_Asriel._

“Chara?”

_I resented you, you know. Just as much as I loved you._

_You were everything to me. When we were kids… you were everything I wanted to be, but_ kind. _You shouldn’t have been_ kind. _It made you weak. It made you a crybaby. That’s what I thought back then._

 _Everything else about you, though… I coveted it_ all. _I even wished I_ looked _like you. Because you were so beautiful, like a great noble animal… and I was just a lowly human._

“Chara, no, don’t close your eyes… don’t fall asleep on me!”

 _I would have daydreams. Ones I never told you about, because I was so embarrassed to have them. I’d dream that if I spent enough time with you and your parents, if I absorbed enough background radiation from your kingdom, I’d slowly start to change… I’d have fur and paws and horns and magic, too, just like you. I’d become a monster. I’d become… a_ real _part of your family, and I wouldn’t_ need _to envy you so much._

“Chara? Chara, can you hear me?”

_It was such a silly dream. Just as silly as all your stupid drawings and the make-believe games we’d play. That’s why I never shared it with you._

_I never outgrew that stupid dream._ This _is where it led me._

“Chara, say something, please! Anything!”

_And I’m sorry I bullied you so much. If I had been a happy child, I might have understood you better. I might have treated you better. But it was because I had been such an unhappy child that I found you at all._

“ _Open your damn eyes, Chara!”_

 _I don’t know how I could have been better for you… for everyone… but I_ should _have been. I know that now. I wish I could have been the friend you_ deserved, _Asriel. But I’m glad you still loved me… in spite of it all._

Chara cracked their eyes open one last time. Asriel was looking right at them. He had grown up to be so strong, so dashing, so handsome, just as Chara had imagined; it was a shame he looked so weary, worn, and weak now. If Asriel had to be the last thing Chara saw, then Chara would have preferred to see him in better shape. “See you later, Asriel,” they rasped. “I lo…”

The rest of the words wouldn’t come out, and only echoed around Chara’s mind as their sight blurred and darkened, consigning everyone and everything around them, sights, sounds, smells, touch, taste, into oblivion.

_Chara, what’s wrong?_

_You can talk to me._

…

_Chara?_

_You’re wasting your time, Frisk._

_With all these humans. They’re never going to respect us._

_What happened?_

_They kicked me out._

_Oh. I—It’s just a club, Chara. There are plenty of others on campus. Join the anime club instead._

_Good riddance. I don’t miss them._

_I’m just…_

_Here’s what they said to me._

‘ _Socialist ideology is a tool to protect the weak from the strong, not to justify your weird, misanthropic hangups.’_

‘ _Weird, misanthropic hangups.’ Their_ exact _words._

_Chara…_

_I’m done with them. They’re just another bunch of selfish, myopic humans._

_The human race is a fucking disgrace. They can burn in hell for all I care._

_So what am I? ‘One of the good ones?’_

_I didn’t mean it like…_

_There are seven billion humans on Earth, Chara. Like it or not, we have to learn to live with them._

_I know._

_I’m just so tired of this. You can’t just toss people aside as soon as they displease you, and you can’t write off seven billion people just because—_

_I_ know, _Frisk._

 _Just…_ try, _for once._

 _I_ do _try!_

 _I_ have _been trying!_

_Every time I try, they disappoint me! Do you have any idea what that’s like, to be let down again and again?_

_Yes._

_Yes, Chara, I do._

_Because I’m stuck with—_

…

_I’m sorry, Chara._

_I didn’t mean that._

_No, go on, Frisk, tell me how you_ really _feel about cleaning up after your sibling’s ‘weird misanthropic hangups.’_

_I—I didn’t mean it like that!_

_I just…_

_I want you to be your best self. I try to be there for you. But… But it’s hard._

_It’s hard when you keep letting me down._

…

_You have to change, Chara._

… _Frisk?_

_You have to change._

_You have to do it yourself._

_I can’t help you anymore._

_Frisk, why are you saying this?_

_Neither of us can change the past._

_As for me… I can’t even change the present, let alone the future._

_Not anymore._

_What are you talking about?_

_When that bullet flew through my brain, I lost the ability to control my destiny._

_But_ you _still have that power, Chara._

_Your determination might not let you change the past, like I could…_

_But you can still change the future._

_You can still change yourself._

_Wait—Don’t go, Frisk!_

_Frisk!_

_I—_

_I still love you, Chara._

_Wake up, please._

_Don’t let yourself become like me._

_Frozen in the past, immutable._

_You have to stay determined._

_But I’m…_

_It was hard, but I never stopped trying to help you be a good person._

_I never gave up, no matter how frustrated I was._

_There’s still time, Chara. You still have a chance._

_You just have to stay determined._

_Frisk, I—_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STAND MASTER: DRACULA  
> STAND NAME: [TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE HEART]


	42. The Vampire’s Stomach

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, Soma's identity crisis comes to an end.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was... an exceptionally difficult chapter to write and just as nerve-wracking to finally publish. For reasons which shall soon become apparent I just had to make sure a certain scene in it was as perfect as I could make it.

When Chara’s body went limp in Asriel’s arms, he feared the worst, and a scream of anguish tore from his throat, echoing through the dark confines of the ethereal library he and Alucard had fallen into.

This couldn’t be the end.

Not here.

Not now.

Not like this.

Toriel had been so _happy_ to see Chara again. And Asriel still recalled from all those years ago when Frisk had given half of their soul to revive him the mixed look of remembered grief and weary relief on her face when she’d first seen _him._

How would she feel after today? After today, when none of her children came back home—and she would never know why?

Asriel was blind, blinded by his own tears as they rolled down his snout and wet his fur. Everything ached, every inch of his body from his toes to the tips of his horns, and his heart most of all.

With the fragment of a human soul powering his own body, Asriel couldn’t even take Chara’s soul into himself the way he’d done all those years ago.

Chara was gone now.

Forever.

Again.

A pathetic whimper escaped from Asriel’s snout, a whine halfway between an unoiled door hinge and a kicked puppy. It was the only noise he could make.

“Asriel,” Alucard called out.

Asriel fumbled in the dark, tears leaking through his squeezed-shut eyelids, and brushed the hair from Chara’s forehead.

Alucard put a cool hand on his shoulder. “Asriel Dreemurr.”

“ _WHAT?”_ Asriel snarled, whirling around and snapping at Alucard like a rabid dog.

Alucard pulled his hand back. “Your sibling lives still. I can smell the beat of their heart from here.”

Hands shaking, Asriel felt for a pulse on Chara’s wrist. To his shock, he found that the half-vampire was right. It was slow and weak, but there was a pulse beneath his sibling’s skin, and Asriel breathed a sigh of relief. Chara was holding on… for now.

Tears of sadness pouring from his eye were replaced by tears of relief. They were just as warm and just as salty.

He set Chara down as gently as possible on the hard wood-paneled floor, sniffling as he wiped the tears from his eye, and sank to the floor at his sibling’s side weary and numb.

“How do we get out of here, Alucard?” Asriel asked, closing his eyes. His voice was hoarse, his throat raspy and raw from crying.

There was a sound like faint knocking against a pane of glass.

Alucard was at a loss. “I—I’m afraid I don’t know. Never have I been trapped in somebody else’s soul before.”

“We can’t be _stuck_ here,” Asriel replied, thinking about everything he had waiting for him at home—his kingdom, his _mother._ Nobody would know where he’d gone if he didn’t make it out of the castle.

He and Chara had never meant to come here—and now they were both going to die here. Was this it? Was he going to end up just like his father? “We _can’t_ be.”

 _There’s no way out of a black hole,_ Asriel told himself.

 _We don’t_ know _what’s on the other side of a black hole,_ Asriel replied to himself.

There was yet another sound like faint knocking against a pane of glass, and this time, Asriel took notice, and turned to face the source of the sound.

Hung on the far wall, in an alcove formed between two bookshelves, was an ornate mirror, Alucard’s name scrawled in blood across it. But the mirror didn’t show his reflection, or Alucard’s. Instead, it showed Soma, and he was pounding on the glass with his fist and shouting, although not so much as a peep made it through.

Actually, Soma looked different than usual. It was something about the face—softer, maybe, rounder, with a healthier glow suffusing his tawny cheeks. And the rest of his body as well seemed different in its shape. But of course, it was Soma—and something in Asriel’s heart told him it was the _real_ one.

Asriel willed himself to his feet and rushed to the mirror’s side, supporting himself against the bookshelf; he could hardly stand. Soma looked relieved to see him and started talking a mile a minute, although no sound came from the mirror.

While Soma continued to gesticulate wildly, Asriel tried to cut him off. “Soma, we—we can’t hear you!”

Soma pounded on the mirror.

“Calm down! We’re going to get you out!” Asriel called Alucard over. “Alucard? Any experience with magic mirrors?”

“We could try smashing it.” Alucard stroked his chin. “Although that might kill him. It depends.”

“Depends on what?”

Alucard snapped his fingers, struck by an idea. “There’s an easy way to check.” He grabbed the mirror by its gilded frame.

Soma threw up his hands and started shaking his head, frantically mouthing “no” as Alucard pulled the mirror off the wall. As the angle of the mirror changed, the reflected room around Soma began to shift, and he lost his balance and fell to the floor.

Alucard smiled. “Ah. As I suspected.”

“What does that mean?” Asriel asked as Alucard put his boot through the mirror, shattering it. But instead of the reflection vanishing, the glass shards simply fell down as if Alucard had simply broken a window. Soma’s voice started coming through the portal, loud and clear. He was swearing.

“Excellent.” Alucard hefted the mirror’s frame and lifted it up, then tilted it over.

–

Soma saw stars as the back of his head collided with the floor. That damn Alucard, treating this little pocket dimension like he was shaking a Christmas present to see if it was a Lego set, when Soma got his hands on him he was going to—

The floor started to tilt and Soma felt himself begin to slide down as the angle pitched further and further. The mirror-window, a thin aperture, rushed closer. _“No, Alucard, I can just get up and walk, nonononononononnnnnnoooooooooooOOOOOOOOOOO—”_

Soma tumbled out of the mirror, bruising his shoulder on the edge and scraping his chin on the level floor. Shards and flecks of glass cushioned his fall.

Asriel helped Soma sit up and wrapped his arms around him. “Soma! God, you—you had me so worried, are you okay?”

Soma couldn’t help but return the hug. He couldn’t fathom just how happy he was to not be trapped in there, to have Asriel here at his side to rescue him from this prison in his own mind. Soma’s eyes were even tearing up. _Thank god I’m not alone…_

“Are you okay, Soma?” Asriel repeated as Soma buried his face in the king’s chest.

Soma sniffled and came back to his senses. “Yeah, this is a healthy amount of glass for a growing, uh, kid’s diet.” He swatted a few stray shards of glass off of his coat’s fur collar. “What are you two _doing_ here?” To say Soma’s rescuers looked horrible was an understatement. Asriel had a few new bloodstains dyeing his already-dirty once-white fur, while Alucard had a few long, burned-closed cuts traversing his chest that had yet to fade away.

Asriel helped Soma brush the rest of the glass out of his hair, his touch astonishingly feeble as he looked Soma up and down with his mismatched eyes. “Long story. You _sure_ you’re okay?”

Soma wiped away some of the blood on his sleeve, not caring much that now his astrally-projected mindscape coat was ruined as well. “Fine.” He looked around the room, eyes flitting from one shadowy corner to another, keeping an eye out for the specter of Dracula. “Listen, guys. Dracula is…”

His voice trailed off when he caught sight of the body laying near his feet, a hollow forming in his stomach as he stared at the big wet flowering bloodstain, pink on the edges and deep burgundy in the center, marring Chara’s purloined clothes. “O-oh, no. Are they…?”

Poor Chara. They were a jerk, and plenty murder-happy, but they really _did_ have a heart of gold deep down. They had saved Soma’s life even when they had nothing to gain from sparing him and everything to gain from killing him. They were… well, they were more or less Soma’s friend, if only by process of elimination.

With Soma’s help, Asriel pulled himself over to Chara and felt their wrist for a pulse. When his hand brushed against theirs, Chara’s fingers curled weakly around Asriel’s. “Alive,” Asriel pronounced, sighing in relief. “For now.”

Soma knelt down beside Asriel and put his arm over his shoulder. “They’ll be—” He eyed Chara’s wound and grimaced. While Soma’s recent memories still felt incredibly fuzzy, something told him that _he_ was responsible for it. “They’ll be okay,” he lied.

 _I_ _f only,_ Soma thought, _there was something I could do to help. Something in here that could close that wound and—_

A lightbulb flickered on in Soma’s brain. He scrabbled to his feet and rushed to the apothecary shelf, his hands roving across the assorted jars and vials and beakers. Within seconds he found it—a certain squarish glass pot filled with black ink. He was certain Chara’s pride wouldn’t have allowed Soma to feed them any of the souls in his collection… but surely they would object the _least_ to this one.

Soma scurried back to Chara’s side, uncapped the inkpot, and brought the edge of the pot to their lips, letting the ink trickle into their mouth.

Chara sputtered and gagged, coughing up blood along with the acrid, bitter ink. In the dim lighting, it almost looked like their blood was black. At Soma’s side, Asriel suppressed a shudder and covered his eyes.

Chara howled, their face twisted in agony as they writhed, scratching at Soma’s arms. Asriel tried his best to lay Chara back down on the floor.

“Just take your medicine,” said Soma, his hand shaking with nervous energy. He had no idea if it would work, and now he was starting to have doubts. What if the souls he captured were only compatible with his own soul? What if this didn’t _do_ anything? Or worse…

Chara forced the concoction down and passed out again in Asriel’s arms, their body going limp once again.

“ _Soma,”_ whispered Asriel, faint horror reflected in his face, _“what have you done?”_

Was nothing going to happen? Had Soma condemned Asriel’s sibling to an agonizing death? “I… I…”

And then Chara began to breathe again, their chest rising and falling in a peaceful and steady rhythm as if they were fast asleep. Soma reached for their neck and felt a strengthening pulse.

It had worked. They were _alive._ Cautiously, Asriel raised the hem of Chara’s shirt, exposing their belly, and found the pale skin bloody but unmarred.

Asriel wiped at his eye. “Th—thank you, Soma.”

“Had to return the favor,” said Soma, standing up to admire his handiwork. Asriel stayed at Chara’s side, kneeling over them, and Soma wondered if the king even had the energy to stand anymore.

Soma offered him his hand, but Asriel nudged it aside. “I’ll be fine,” he said.

Alucard put his pale hand on Soma’s shoulder. “Soma, how did you get here?” he asked.

Soma looked Alucard dead in the eyes and felt bile build up in the back of his throat. He choked it down. “I don’t know. Everything went black, but the last thing I remember—” He gritted his teeth, swung his hand back, and before Asriel could stop him, smacked Alucard across the face. “Was holding a sword to your throat, _you son of a bitch!”_

The half-vampire made no effort to avoid the blow, and it left a white handprint on his pale cheek.

“You _knew_ all this would happen! You pasty Machiavellian _bastard!”_ Soma unloaded on him, the rage flowing back into his body. “So what was it? Why’d you bring me here? You wanted to play catch one more time with your papa? Or are you gonna say you did it for some _noble_ reason?”

“Nothing I could do could change what you are,” Alucard pointed out. “You were bound to come here and confront your darkness sooner or later. I was to make sure you—”

Soma grabbed him by his coat. “So is it _my_ fault that my past life’s currently got control of my body? Because _I_ failed to confront something I didn’t even know I _was_ until today? You asshole, why didn’t you _tell_ me?”

“That is not what I meant—”

“Quiet! Both of you!” Asriel snapped as he grabbed Soma from behind and pinned Soma’s arms behind his back. “Come on, Soma. Deep breaths. Calm down.”

“I take full responsibility for this predicament. But…” Alucard drew his cloak tighter around him, hiding his pasty, battle-scarred chest, glaring at Soma with his wolfish golden eyes. “Now is not the time for bickering.”

“ _Bickering?”_ Soma wrenched himself free of Asriel’s grip—weakened by constant battle, the king gave up without a fight—and knocked Alucard against one of the vast library’s towering bookshelves. The books rattled on their shelves, several teetering perilously on the edge and threatening to leap off to the floor as Alucard slammed into the shelves. “Everyone’s going to _die_ because of you! Everyone! Your _friends,_ dammit—do you even _care_ about them?”

Soma took a swing at Alucard with every word until, knuckles cracked and bleeding, his tired arms fell to his sides. “Vermin. You’re just as much garbage as any of the other assholes in this castle,” he panted.

Alucard wiped away the blood trickling from his nose and lip, scowling. “Are you done?”

“Am I _done?_ Am I _done?!_ You were a _part_ of this!” Soma flung out his arms, gesturing to the furthest reaches of the enormous library. _“You_ got me wrapped up in this, you and your—your stupid international conspiracy X-Files bullshit! _You_ ruined my life! _You’re_ going to kill Mina! And what about Miss Belnades? I thought she was your _friend!_ All you do is take people in, draw them close to you, and—and you _destroy_ them! I—I wish—I wish I’d—” Soma choked his words past a growing lump in his throat, hot tears warming his cheeks, hardly able to see Alucard through the watery haze blurring his vision. “You—you— _stupid, evil—”_

Asriel put his hands on Soma’s shoulders. “I think you’re done, Soma. I’m sorry for what Alucard did to you. I know how angry you are right now, but we’ll have to work this out later.”

Soma closed his eyes and breathed deeply, under the king’s guidance, and felt the tension drain from his body.

Everything Soma had been afraid of, everything everybody had told him about himself had been true. He hadn’t been strong enough to prove them wrong. All the hundreds of times he could have died in this castle—he could have let it happen just _once_ and things would have been better for everybody.

He struggled to breathe yet again as a fresh wave of self-loathing broke against him. _Mina. Poor Mina. She thought I was stronger than this, and I wasn’t. Just Soma Cruz, never as strong or as smart or as skilled as anyone needs me to be—a perpetual disappointment._

“…I’m Dracula.”

“You’re _Soma,”_ Asriel corrected.

“I’m _Dracula,”_ Soma repeated. The king meant well enough, but Soma knew he was wrong. Soma was, as he’d said to Mina, a thin shell of prog rock and pretty hair over a _thing._

“This,” Alucard explained as he rose to his full height and gestured to the expansive library, the meager injuries Soma had inflicted on him already healed, “is Dracula. But _you…”_ He began to thumb through the books lining the walls, flipping through them absentmindedly. _“_ _Y_ _ou_ are Soma Cruz’s essence. His idealized self-image, in a way. A pure gestalt of seventeen years of thoughts, feelings, and memories unique and distinct from Dracula.”

“So I’m… what, a projection? I’m not the _real_ Soma?” Wasn’t _that_ the kicker? Here he was, stuck in here, and he wasn’t even really _him._

“I wouldn’t go that far,” Asriel assured him.

“In a sense, you are not. In another sense… you are, perhaps, the realest you could ever be,” Alucard answered. “Soma Cruz, distilled, purified.”

Soma digested the knowledge. He knelt down, picked up a shard of mirror, and held it between two fingers, peering at it intently as he angled and adjusted the shard. A familiar face stared back at him… a face that was Soma’s, but somehow not _his._

“Tell me, Soma,” Alucard went on. “You’ve been feeling more and more anger, more hatred, more bloodlust, and not for rational causes, as your time in this castle has gone on, haven’t you?”

Soma nodded absentmindedly, only half-listening as his eyes bored into his reflection.

“But now, in this liminal space, those frightening impulses are gone. You feel, perhaps, as you did before you ever knew of this place? Am I correct?” Alucard asked.

Soma did feel the way he’d felt before he’d gotten roped into this absurd situation, but also he did not. He felt like Soma, but he did not feel like _himself._ And what did it mean if his reflection was more real than him? And what did it mean if his reflection was—

“Something wrong, Soma?” Asriel asked.

_Who am I?_

The mirror shard slipped out of Soma’s hand, clattering to the floor to lie with its misshapen brethren as Soma put a hand to his chest and felt something he’d never felt before. Everything clicked into place. Soma finally understood why his heart had ached whenever he’d seen that vision in the mirror. Why his body felt so different now.

Soma finally understood what that other Soma was, that one who’d looked like a twin, a twin sister, that one reflection of Soma who’d looked wrong in all the right ways.

The part of Soma that had no connection to Dracula, that was different from the dark lord in every conceivable way, right down to—

Why hadn’t Soma realized right away? Why hadn’t Soma realized _hours_ ago? _Years_ ago?

Soma felt like a liquid that had finally been poured into the right glass. At last, at long last— _true_ understanding. _“_ _I’m not Dracula,”_ Soma whispered.

“That’s the spirit,” said Asriel.

The reflection, the purest distilled form of Soma’s identity—not a _twin_ in the mirror. Certainly not anything as ridiculous as a long-lost sister.

Suddenly, things Soma had barely ever thought about made sense. Little things, fleeting thoughts Soma had always just assumed _every_ _one_ thought about but never talked about and had always known better than to voice.

This was why Soma had never fit in. This was why Soma had cherished that coat so much—that coat Soma had always worn because wearing it meant not having to think so much about the body underneath it.

“Guys?” Soma asked Asriel and Alucard, voice trembling. “Be honest here… I look different, don’t I?”

Both of them nodded.

“D-Do I still look like a _guy?”_

Asriel shrugged. “I—I guess, if you _want_ to.”

“Because,” Soma said, “I’ve just noticed… this whole, uh, pure gestalt, idealized self-image, internal mental avatar whatever… kinda looks like a girl.”

As those words finally left Soma's mouth, it was as though a curse had been broken. “I—Oh, of course. Mina was right all along. There was _more_ to me than Dracula. There was _always_ more.” Once the dam had burst Soma found herself unable to stop talking. The excitement, shock, and awe just pushed all of her thoughts out of her. “There was always _this!”_

Alucard peered at Soma. “I suppose all things are possible in such a place as this.”

“Shut up, Alucard,” Soma retorted. She patted herself down, marveling at the changes to her body. Everything just felt _right_ in a way Soma had never paid any mind to before. She’d buried her truth so deeply in her subconscious that she’d barely realized anything had been wrong. But it _had_ been wrong. _Everything_ had been wrong. But now it was all right.

It was not easy to feel _happy_ in Dracula’s castle, especially when the fate of the world was at stake. And yet a fleeting instant of tranquility and understanding cut through the storm, and for Soma it was _almost_ like happiness.

And then an instant later the crushing weight of Soma’s current situation bore down on her once again, overwhelming her.

“What was the point of finding this out _now?_ Is the universe really this cruel? I—Is this some trick by Dracula to break my spirit?”

Alucard opened his mouth again, but Asriel quickly motioned for him to zip it. He did.

“Calm down.” Asriel draped his arm over Soma’s shoulders and held her close, although Soma could tell he was using her for support as much as she was using him. “Are you okay?” he asked. “I’m sure this must be a shock—I actually have a friend who…”

“Can this wait?” Alucard asked, tapping his foot impatiently.

“Shut up, Alucard,” Soma and Asriel both said in unison. Soma nearly laughed at how synchronized the two of them were. It was really easy to find humor in stupid things when you were stuck in a hopeless situation, wasn’t it?

“Give the poor kid a minute to find herself, will you?” Asriel added.

The word hit her right in the heart, and Soma realized for the first time that it was something she’d always wanted but never knew how to ask for.

“Thanks,” Soma replied with a faint hint of a nervous smile that quickly grew in strength and confidence. She didn’t feel so cold anymore. “But don’t you guys worry about me.”

“ _Indeed. You have bigger things to trouble your feeble minds right now than deeply-repressed gender dysphoria, don’t you?”_ a voice echoed through the mindscape. A man walked down the staircase leading to the upper level of the library, a forest-green robe swirling around him as an invisible wind ruffled his fur mantle.

The man Soma had seen in the mental locus. The man who nearly had Soma’s own face. The man who’d written his own name on the mirror for Soma to see. The man who now controlled Soma’s body in the outside world.

“Who are you?” Alucard asked.

The stranger’s eyes widened. “Why, Alucard. I’m _insulted_ you don’t recognize me.” The mysterious man cocked his head. “My own flesh and blood. Did you never once stop to consider that your father was once a handsome young man like you?”

Asriel and Alucard reached for their weapons but found nothing at their sides.

Soma also had no weapon to defend herself with. And since Soma was _inside_ her mental library, of course she couldn’t _go_ to it, which meant she had none of her powers. _Shit._

Dracula dug into his robes and drew out two swords, holding one in each hand. One had a black blade that glowed with a red light, the other was dull and deadened in Dracula’s hand but was unmistakably the Claimh Solais. “Were you looking for these?” Dracula asked, sheathing the useless Claimh Solais underneath his long robes and effortlessly twirling the other sword, forming translucent blood-red arcs in the air in front of him.

“Let Soma go!” A golden-white spear flared to life in Asriel’s hand, but Soma could see the king’s legs wobbling and knew that he wouldn’t be able to fend for himself. “Dracula!”

“In a certain sense of the word, yes, I am,” said Dracula, leering at the exhausted trio with blazing red eyes. “I am but a projection of the real Dracula, an instrument of his will. Somewhat like you, Soma. But _you_ —you’re nothing but a tumor that grew for seventeen miserable years, a tumor who was allowed to dream of being a human named Soma Cruz,” Dracula sneered, leveling the blade to point directly at Soma’s throat. “And I am the surgeon who will excise you from Dracula’s soul and make the Lord of the Night pure once more.”

Soma stifled a growl as Asriel stepped in front of her, his spear of blazing gold-white firelight shimmering with a faint rainbow of colors. “Stay back,” he told her. “The two of us will handle this.”

Soma was not convinced; neither was Dracula.

“Will you now?” Dracula laughed. “Asriel Dreemurr, a weak, feeble overgrown farm animal who can barely stand on two legs without them buckling beneath him? Hardly fit to be a beast of burden—I ought to put you out to pasture. And Alucard Fahrenheit Tepes, the legendary vampire slayer, consumed by five centuries of loneliness and self-loathing as he runs away from anyone who dares to care about him as fast as his legs can carry him? How I enjoy being able to tell you, my son, that you’ve wasted your life. Even Dracula’s _shadow_ will be too much for you!”

Dracula swung the blade, a deep-throated rush of wind following in its wake, rattling the dusty bookshelves. Asriel and Alucard both flinched. They were in no condition to fight, and Soma could tell they both knew it.

“Oh, Alucard, you’ll be quite disappointed to know that your dear Miss Belnades died as she lived: a weak, fragile coward who couldn’t stand up to anyone without _you_ at her side. Julius was by far the least impressive of his bloodline. And Asriel, your oh-so-capable Captain Undyne threw herself at my feet and begged for my mercy before I took her head and stuck it on a pike next to her wife’s.”

Dracula absentmindedly adjusted his cloak, as if daring anybody to make their first move against him. “And Soma Cruz… It’s too bad, Soma, about poor Mina.”

_No._

“I saved her. Saved her for _last,_ that is.” Dracula licked his pale lips, exposing his ivory fangs for an instant. “She was always so cute, wasn’t she? A paragon of beauty and of virtue. It didn’t take me long to catch up to her. She was _begging_ me to her very last breath.”

_No!_

“Crying. _Sobbing._ ‘Please, Soma, I know you’re in there! I love you! ’ she wailed. As far as last words went, those were quite good!” Dracula’s grin stretched from ear to ear as Soma felt every neuron in her imaginary astrally-projected brain start to scream. “Knowing that she was _right_ made her blood taste that much sweeter as it mingled with her tears—no wine of any vintage could compare!”

Soma ripped the spear from Asriel’s hand and with a rage greater than any she’d felt in her life tore into Dracula with a fury and ferocity of such intensity that it made the way she’d felt about King Crimson seem like a candle rather than an inferno, the polearm’s blade clashing against his sword and throwing up sparks as she struck over and over and over again, forcing Dracula back as the gray-black blade in his hands shivered and trembled under the repeated impacts.

Soma had hoped that with each strike, each swing of the blazing partisan, each ring of Dracula’s steel blade, each reverberating tremor that rattled the bones in her arms, a bit of that fire raging within her would be quenched, a bit of that sadness crushing her heart would leak out, a bit of the raging demon baying for blood would be excised.

It wasn’t working. Soma just felt angrier and angrier as Dracula stood there and _took_ it as if he barely cared at all that Soma was attacking him.

And when Soma’s legs gave out beneath her and her knees hit the floor, her breath stalling in her throat as the blazing partisan burst into sparks, her fury had only grown stronger. It was a hatred she couldn’t even put into words. She choked, coughed, gagged, and a torrent of her own blood tore itself from her mouth and splattered against the lacquered oak panels. Soma shivered like she had a fever as her stomach convulsed, barely even able to see straight as the thick and metallic tang of her own blood mingled with the sting of bilious acid coated the inside of her nose and mouth as if her very soul was rebelling against her.

But—but Dracula had never even laid so much as a pale, spidery _finger_ on her, how could she be—

“Do you feel it, Soma? Do you _remember?”_ Dracula stuck his long blade into the floor, letting it stand tall as he peered down at Soma with a gleam in his eyes. “Did the rage bring all those memories back?”

Soma’s brain was full to bursting. Sights, sounds, sensations rushed past her mind’s eye like a slideshow at high speed, synchronized to the rapid beating of her heart.

The solid wood of the library began to waver and melt like wet paint in rain. The ceiling disappeared, revealing a silvery-blue moon peering down through a gap in the heavy clouds overhead; the corridors of bookshelves gave way to crumbling stone ramparts and grotesque statuary. In a matter of seconds Soma’s mental locus, her mind library, her self-created safe space, had become a new Castlevania molded in pure white like an unpainted marble statue, shadows wreathing its alabaster innards in black.

The castle.

The castle was her _home._ Soma _lived_ there, she _belonged_ there, on the throne. And there was a _family_ there, _her_ family, and fire and deep sadness and infinite hatred: hatred against all of humanity for taking from Dracula the love of his life, his dearest and most beloved Lisa, and for turning his son against him.

Soma could feel _all_ of it.

Mathias Cronqvist, born in the eleventh century _anno domini,_ fought in the Crusades, returned home to find his wife had passed away. Vowed revenge on God, obtained immortality, became a vampire and dwelled in darkness and solitude for no other reason than spite against Heaven itself.

He took the name Dracula. Met a woman in the fifteenth century. Her name was Lisa. She was beautiful and kind and iron-willed and she pushed him to be _better._ He walked the Earth at her bequest and began to regain the humanity he had cast aside, slowly but surely.

He came home to find that Lisa had been murdered.

By the very humans she sought to care for.

And his own son had stood by and done nothing.

Dracula swore to wipe humankind from the face of the Earth.

The next five centuries were a time loop. Die to a Belmont. Revive. Die. Redo. Die. Reset.

Die.

Die in 1999, this time for good.

Soma Cruz, born in 2017, a shell to house Dracula’s wandering soul. Those ephemeral seventeen years of life were to Soma’s _true_ identity like the life of a mayfly to a human.

Soma couldn’t deny it any longer. What was a man but the sum of his memories? And what were seventeen years of memories compared to centuries of immortality?

_I do not exist._

“I’m… I—I can’t be you…” Another torrent of blood sprayed out, the coppery stench filling Soma’s nose and mouth, dripping down her chin and soaking into her shirt, the stains black on black and bleeding onto the lapels of her white coat. Soma fell on all fours, heaving and retching as her insides rebelled against her. “You… you killed Mina…” Every pause was punctuated by a new spray of blood, just when she thought she’d surely vomited up every drop in her veins already.

Staring down at her blood-speckled hands, Soma noticed not only blood marring them, but splotches of pale alabaster-white eating away at her fawn-brown skin like acid, as if the color was being leeched from her body.

_But…_

It was all Soma’s fault. Mina had been brought here because of _her._ So, then, _she_ had killed Mina, and Dracula had killed Mina, and so of course she was Dracula, _of course,_ everything about being Soma and being a girl was nothing but a fantasy, a delusion to shy away the horrible truth that—

“ _Mina Hakuba is still alive.”_

A cold, pale hand closed around Soma’s left hand, a warm, furry hand closed around her right, and Asriel and Alucard helped her to her feet.

“Yoko Belnades,” Alucard said, “has never run away from anything in her life. She faces every challenge, no matter how frightening, with courage and conviction, even without me to protect her. And surely you must remember that Julius was— _is—_ the strongest of his family.”

“And ‘mercy,’” said Asriel, “isn’t a word Captain Undyne knows how to say. She’d _never_ grovel to anyone, let alone you, no matter what you did to her or her loved ones. So that’s three people you’ve lied about killing… and if I were Mina, I’d feel awfully good about my chances right now.”

_Mina’s alive._

The fire in Soma’s heart had gone out. The berserker rage had deserted her. She’d regained her hold on her mind and body.

_Mina’s alive!_

Five hundred years of remembered fury, the fury of Dracula, faded away from Soma’s mind like the remnants of a bad dream.

_MINA’S ALIVE!_

–

Julius Belmont was stronger than he had thought. And stronger than Dracula had expected.

Dracula, wearing Soma Cruz’s body like a suit, gasped and panted for breath, steam rising from his open mouth as blood trickled from a dozen lacerations racking his body. The hatred in his eyes was unlike anything Julius had seen—in anything but his nightmares—in the past thirty-six years.

Dracula took a step forward, staggering, chest heaving, shock registering in his shining red eyes as fresh blood gushed anew from his wounds. His skin was split and burned wherever it was visible.

Julius fell to one knee, his own breath heavy in his lungs. He’d fought harder than he’d known he could fight, landed more hits than he’d expected, taken more lumps than he’d thought was possible for a broken, battered, beaten old man.

If he could just get up… if he could just stand up, if he could crack the Vampire Killer against Dracula’s nearly-minced body one more time…

He could still hear Mina crying out behind him. The sight she’d witnessed, of Julius flaying the flesh from Soma’s bones—even if it wasn’t really Soma—was too much for her to bear, but Hammer held her back and tempered her impulse to run to her dear friend’s side.

His vision blurred and doubled, Dracula splitting in two before his eyes. Julius couldn’t stand up. He was frozen in place, bowing to Dracula in spite of himself. The last bit of strength had trickled out of his body and all he could do was breathe.

Gunshots rang through the air, roaring like thunderclaps in the cloudless spring air; the bullets did nothing to further harm Dracula as his wounds, grievous as they were, began to slowly knit themselves closed.

“I’ve waited for this day,” said Dracula, “for such a long time. To see the end of your bloodline, to see your family crumble into the mists of legend permanently…” Sheathing his sword, he stepped closer to Julius as Julius’ vision began to tunnel and fade into black. “I will so enjoy,” he drawled, “the act of snuffing out your life with nothing but my bare hands…”

Before Julius lost consciousness, he felt grateful that he would not be awake to feel the moment of his death. He knew that at Dracula’s hands, his death would be painful beyond his imagination.

In his eager wannabe-rockstar youth Julius had once told Alucard his dream had been to die peacefully in bed surrounded by beautiful women, or failing that, to die of a massive OD surrounded by beautiful women. Oh, well. The Rolling Stones had got it right after all.

–

Mina gathered her wits and her courage about her as she broke away from Hammer’s grip. She couldn’t take it anymore. She couldn’t bear to witness the sight of these two men—Soma, her best friend, and J, the rough but kind drifter she and Soma had helped only a few days ago—tearing each other to pieces any more than she already had.

“Wait!” she shouted out.

Dracula paused, his clawed hand inches away from Julius’ throat. His eyes glowed bright crimson as he turned his head to look at Mina, and as his eyes met hers, she nearly fell over.

Mina’s heart fluttered with anxiety, but she had now gone too far to back away. “Soma—M-Mister Dracula, sir,” she stammered. “Please don’t kill him.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yup. So there's the big reveal.
> 
> For those of you not too familiar with Castlevania, this new development with Soma is 100% a fabrication of this fanfic (like the rest of the embellishments I've made to Soma's character--there's no mention of prog rock in the games, unfortunately). It's a headcanon that came to me in a dream while I was writing the rough draft of this story.
> 
> I really hope this doesn't come across as a shitty twist or a pandering shock or anything like that. Like I said, it's an idea I fell in love with, and I've been planting hints about Soma having repressed gender dysphoria since Chapter 8 in case you want to go back and look for them.
> 
> Especially in Chapter 28. Go back and give Chapter 28 a re-read if you feel like it. I was telegraphing pretty hard there.
> 
> Oh, you were probably expecting a big Julius vs Dracula fight scene, weren't you? Try as I might, I couldn't really fit it in without ruining the pacing and making an already-stuffed finale just a hair too bloated. [This should get you up to speed.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgM-dGtbVW4)
> 
> Oh, yeah, one more thing. The appearance of Dracula's mental projection is a reference to [Dracula's original form in Castlevania canon, since ](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/castlevania/images/a/a7/Mathias_Cronqvist.png)[people have noticed how similar he looks to Soma](https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/castlevania/images/d/dc/Mathias_vs_Soma.JPG) since like forever.


	43. Toccata into Blood-Stained Darkness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, battered heroes and heroines make their final stand against Dracula on two fronts, and things go even more off the rails.
> 
> [(musical accompaniment)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A8EfxAhz8-o)

“Please,” Mina said as Dracula stood over the battered, beaten old man at his feet, “don’t kill him.” Hammer grabbed her roughly by the arm, his panicked shouts desperate. But Mina wasn’t going anywhere.

Not without Julius.

And not without Soma.

Dracula laughed. His outstretched hand fell to his side, and he stood up, drawing himself to his full height. His bloodstained coat swirled around him. Mina had his full attention now—for better or for worse. “Awfully bold of you to give _me_ orders. Do you know who I _am?”_

 _You’re Soma, my friend,_ Mina wanted to say, but feared saying so would enrage Dracula. Her mind raced. She barely knew what she was doing, which was all the more reason to think very carefully about what she could do and say. “Don’t hurt him. He’s just an old man. He can’t fight back.”

“Very well. I shall spare his wretched life.” Dracula bowed. “Yet… I am the reincarnation of Dracula. Tell me,” he continued, “if I choose to go back on my word and rip out this man’s throat, who will stop me?” His smoldering red eyes scanned the courtyard. “Who can fight me?”

“No one can fight you,” Mina admitted. “But…”

All her life Mina had let others fight for her, defend her, rescue her. Now it was her duty to stand up for them. She’d spent the past few hours seeing nothing but people fighting, swords meeting swords, blood spilling over stone and sand. This was where it had led. All the warriors had fallen. Every weapon had proven useless in the end.

And so there had to be another way. A way nobody else had ever tried.

“Me,” said Mina, remembering the courage she’d felt standing up to the King in Yellow and trying to force herself to feel that way again.

“ _You?”_ Dracula grinned, his eyes twinkling. He looked like Christmas had come early. “And… how? How will you do that? Will you draw a circle of salt around me? Will you throw a spell tag at my face or hang another useless amulet around my neck? Please. Do tell me how _you_ can defeat me.”

Soma was Dracula’s reincarnation, and thus had been born with Dracula’s soul. That means Dracula _had_ a soul. Mina just had to draw it out. She had to do the one thing nobody had ever tried to do to Dracula.

“I will talk to you.”

Before Mina could blink Dracula was in front of her, and up close she could see that he really did seem to be wearing a Soma-shaped skin-suit. All of the features of his face were Soma’s, although the color had slowly started to drain from his skin; he was just as tall as before; only his eyes were different—and yet his whole body from head to toe felt _wrong._

He reached out for Mina, long fingers—cold fingers, _dead_ fingers—caressing her cheek. Mina shivered, and with a tremor in her hand she couldn’t help but hide, she reached up and took his hand, showing him that she wasn’t scared.

Of course, she was terrified.

“Well then,” said Dracula, “let us parley.”

The courtyard vanished around Mina.

–

Asriel’s legs moved of their own volition, even though he could barely feel them, as another partisan ignited in his hands and another three flared to life and hovered around him like sentinels.

Asriel was a strange creature, even among monsters. Because he’d lost his soul when he’d died, his friend Frisk—more of a friend than Asriel had deserved at the time—had split their own soul in two to return him to life. The result: a monster powered by a fragment of a human soul.

Human souls vastly overpowered monster souls. That fragment of a human soul granted Asriel near-limitless magical potency—his was a fire that would never go out. But Asriel couldn’t say the same about his stamina or his body’s resilience.

And he was closer to his body’s breaking point than ever before.

Durandal, the sword Dracula had stolen, clashed against the long blade of Asriel’s partisan, and he struggled to hold it back. The other partisans, hanging in the air at Asriel’s command, locked their crossblades around Durandal’s blade and wrenched it away, leaving Dracula wide open.

Asriel struck, tearing through Dracula’s cloak and exposing his chest. He could see the glint of the Claimh Solais’ golden hilt at the dark lord’s side, but Dracula shifted his position too quickly for Asriel to grab at it.

Alucard rushed in, transfiguring himself into a cloud of mist as he reached Dracula. His hand re-materialized around the hilt of the Claimh Solais and he wrenched it free. The blade remained heavy and dull in his hand, but nonetheless he raised the sword one-handed and brought it crashing down.

Dracula blocked the Claimh Solais with Durandal and plucked one of the partisans out of the air to parry Asriel’s next strike. A weapon in each hand, he whirled around, blades lashing out. Alucard grabbed Asriel by the collar and yanked him just out of range.

Asriel stumbled and fell on his back as Alucard continued to fight against the phantom of his father, the two of them locked in a battle that was almost as much a ballet as it was a fight. His head ached and he could hardly move. The deep cuts on his back still screamed at him to stay down as he lay on the cold stones beneath him.

But he wasn’t going to stay down like this. He pushed himself up on arms that could barely support his shoulders. As if on cue, thorny green vines tore free of his skin, leaving bloody holes in his flesh, and curled around him to support his aching limbs like a harness. He had to tap into everything he had if he wanted to survive… even things he’d meant to keep buried deep inside himself forever.

Soma knelt at his side. “Jeez, fuck, Asriel, a-are you—What the _hell?”_

“Don’t worry about it.” Asriel looked straight at her, and he must have been quite a sight—Soma recoiled as soon as he turned his head. “Soma, you’re not the only one who’s had to deal with something like this inside your soul. Call it darkness if you want—It never really leaves you.”

Asriel stood up, the thorns tearing through his ragged clothes, digging into his skin and igniting blossoms of red blood against his fur. Adrenaline coursed through his body as if his veins carried starlight instead of blood—and a deep, abiding lust to cause pain. “But with discipline, and a strong, kind heart, Soma… you can be its master, not its slave.” Asriel wished he’d known to tell her that sooner.

With an elegant riposte Dracula tore the Claimh Solais from Alucard’s hand, thoroughly disarming him. Asriel threw himself between the two of them, long trailing vines lashing out and wrapping around Dracula. With the vampire lord pinned Asriel drove him into the wall, the bricks cracking and shattering underneath his body. With a mighty swing that nearly tore Asriel’s arms apart underneath the nexus of vines supporting them, he threw a punch at Dracula.

Dracula vanished, his form fading into mist, and Asriel’s fist went right through him with enough force to drive spiderweb cracks up to the height of the castle wall. Dracula’s misty form coalesced behind Asriel. Asriel’s leg lashed out, catching Dracula in the stomach, throwing him backward.

As Dracula stumbled, a shining blue-white blade pierced his arm with a shower of red and black ichor. The Claimh Solais, in Soma’s hands, had ignited once more.

–

Mina and Dracula reappeared in an opulently-decorated room deep within the castle, untouched by the carnage that had swept through Castlevania. Dracula took a seat at one end of an elegant mahogany table placed in the center of the room and motioned for Mina to take a seat across from her.

Swallowing a lump in her throat, Mina sat down. The chair’s velvet cushion was impossibly soft, but Mina’s mental state made it hard for her to appreciate it.

“I am a bit of a multitasker, Miss Hakuba,” said Dracula.

“M-Mina is fine, sir.”

“Noted. Do not interrupt me. Mina, do you know of _The Seventh Seal?”_

Mina nodded. Of course she did. It was a classic film. Soma and Mina both liked classic films. For Dracula to know about it, he must have been drawing on Soma’s memories. Mina felt a rush of hope—Soma still existed as long as his memories did.

“Why don’t we time our conversation to a game of chess?” Dracula asked innocently. “Or perhaps you would prefer shogi or go?”

“I would prefer go,” Mina answered. Her father had taught Soma how to play one summer. Soma was good at it… but Mina had more experience. It wasn’t her favorite game, but she felt confident she could provide a challenge to Dracula.

“Very well.” Dracula snapped his fingers and a full-size 19x19 grid burned itself into the table’s polished wooden surface. Two wooden bowls appeared, one at Dracula’s side, one at Mina’s. “You will talk only when taking your turn, as will I. You have until one of us wins. When the game is over, I will decide what I will do to you.”

“Um… What if _I_ win?” Mina asked.

“When the game is over, I will decide what I will do to you,” Dracula repeated. He plucked a shimmering stone of colorless fluorite from his bowl, let it catch the light from the chandelier overhead, and set it back into the bowl. “I will play as white. The first move is yours.”

Mina reached into her own bowl and withdrew a cool stone of shining, polished hematite. She’d have expected Dracula to go with slate and clamshell, as was traditional for more opulent sets of stones, but if Dracula wished to be nontraditional, that surely was his priority.

She hesitated placing the first stone. When large differences of skill were present, the weaker player would use black and would be given a handicap. Was Dracula trying to intimidate her? “D-Do I take a handicap?”

Dracula said nothing.

“Oh. I guess it’s my—”

Dracula held up his pale hand and hissed through his teeth.

Mina placed her first stone.

“An inauspicious start,” said Dracula, placing his first stone on the board.

–

Soma wrenched the Claimh Solais out of Dracula, a spray of blood shooting from the entry and exit wound. “Get the hell out of my head,” she snarled.

Dracula whirled around, the ejecta from his wounds spraying through the air in wide arcs, and black fire wreathed Durandal’s blade as he swung the legendary sword. Steel met steel again and again. Dracula wasn’t giving up so easily—but neither would Soma. She was going to take back her body come hell or high water.

The Claimh Solais overpowered Durandal, sending it flying from Dracula’s fingers and sailing across the air. Alucard caught it in midair and stood at Soma’s side. Behind the now-disarmed Dracula, Asriel stood tall, a golden-white sword igniting in his hands. With the plant matter wreathed around him, his good eye turned jet-black, and tongues of flames, white-hot with rainbow patterns like an oil slick shimmering across them, fluttering behind his back like feathery wings, Asriel looked almost as frightening as Dracula himself.

Cornered but not defeated, Dracula lunged at Soma, black fire bursting from his fingertips and coalescing into jagged blades. Alucard parried and Soma struck, tearing another gash in Dracula’s flesh.

Soma, Alucard, and Asriel fought together, assaulting Dracula from three angles. Dracula’s face, once calm, was now twisted in fury. He’d thought this was going to be _easy._

To Soma’s surprise, Dracula grinned, and his clawed fingers, still coated in black embers, took Soma by the wrist. There was a jolt of excruciating pain and all sensation in Soma’s hand vanished. The Claimh Solais clattered to the floor as Soma shouted out in agony. Her wrist had been cooked, the skin blackened and smoking, red blisters running up her forearm. She couldn’t so much as move her fingers.

Dracula’s next strike severed the vines supporting Asriel’s legs, sending him falling onto one knee. His third plunged his blade deep into Alucard’s side.

Soma scrabbled with her left hand for the Claimh Solais as Dracula bore down on her, ready to finish the job and end her once and for all.

Asriel charged past him, shoving Dracula aside, and scooped Soma up, sprinting through the castle doors on legs that barely worked. The vines twisted around his limbs and trailing from his muzzle were yellowing and turning brittle.

Wreathed in flame, Dracula pursued, gaining ground on Asriel as he fled.

Asriel kicked the door open and crossed the threshold into the castle, falling onto the richly-carpeted floor with Soma still in his arms. Dracula came closer, a fiery blade in each hand, only for Alucard to leap in front of him.

The twin blades cut through him in a black-light X, throwing Alucard to the floor.

He staggered to his feet, the massive wound on his chest smoking as his ragged and burned cloak hung from his shoulders.

“Father,” he spat at Dracula, holding Durandal in a two-handed grip as he parried Dracula’s next blow, “you have had your time to walk among the living—you have had it and more than you deserved. I shall not allow you to further mock Mother’s wishes!”

“ _What do you know of Lisa’s wishes?”_ Dracula snarled.

“ _I heard her dying words! Words you spent your life spurning! I wonder,”_ Alucard shouted out, _“if you ever truly loved her_ half _as much as she loved you!”_

Dracula screamed and struck Alucard again. Alucard parried the blow with all his might and glanced backward for only an instant, his eye meeting Soma’s. _“Run, you fool!”_

–

Mina took her next turn. “Wh—why are you like this?”

“I _beg_ your pardon?”

“Why are you like this?” Mina repeated, swallowing hard, trying to force the cold lump in her throat down as she began forming a chain on the board. “Y-you weren’t always a vampire, were you? You were just like us once.”

Dracula stared at her, transfixed for a second before beginning to create a chain of his own adjacent to Mina’s, then crossed his arms. “Excuse me?”

“You probably—you must have _loved_ somebody once.”

“Oh, I _must_ have?” His next stone hit the table with a loud, ringing _thwack._

“And you must still remember how it felt,” Mina continued. “Because how can you feel so much _hate_ and not remember love?” _Even Chara, whose heart was so full of venom, felt love once, and_ still _knew how to feel it._

“What do you know,” Dracula whispered coldly, “of love?”

“Who was it?” Mina asked as she grew her chain, trying to wrap around Dracula’s before his could capture hers. “Alucard was your son, right? Was it his mother?”

Dracula froze.

“What was her name, sir?”

Dracula did not respond, but with a hand trembling with fury quietly placed another stone.

“Can you remember her?” Mina’s voice quavered as she began to branch out across the board. “If—if you can, then—”

Dracula regained his composure and glared at Mina, freezing the breath in her lungs as he surrounded and captured a small group of Mina’s stones. “Do not speak above your station, whelp.”

“She must have—” Mina hesitated before placing her next stone on the board, fighting to speak over the chattering of her own teeth as she pondered both where she could make her next move and what words she should choose next. “She was kind. Very kind. Wasn’t she? It must have hurt—more than I can imagine—when you lost her. You miss her so terribly, e-even now.”

Was it a trick of the light or her imagination that those scarlet eyes were softening? Dracula stayed silent as he set down another shining opalescent stone.

“B-because,” Mina added, “she believed in you. She was the only one. And then you lost her.” Mina began building another group of black stones, this one encroaching on Dracula’s white stones. “A-and that—”

Dracula shot to his feet, rage flashing across his borrowed face, and while he loomed over Mina he threw his next white piece down with enough force that every other piece on the board rattled. _“You dare presume to know how I feel?”_

“Yes.” Mina gulped. “I—I do. Because you… you took someone I love from me, too. And… and I want him back.” She took as deep a breath as her body, half-paralyzed with fear, would allow as she timidly set down another black stone. _“What was her name, Mr. Dracula, sir?”_

–

Soma caught Asriel as he collapsed to the floor in the marble hallway deeper within the castle, battered and bloody.

“Don’t worry about me,” Asriel panted through gritted teeth as Soma helped him up. “Just… just put as much distance between you and Dracula as you can.”

“Come on, Asriel. I’ve still got the Claimh Solais, I’ll—”

“Soma, no.” Asriel took her by the shoulder and Soma found herself staring into his dead left eye, a white orb with an unfocused, slate-gray iris and milky white pupil. “I… I’ll stay here and hold Dracula off for you. You… find somewhere safe to build up your strength.”

“Asriel, that’s stupid!”

Asriel nearly fell to his knees again, his claws tearing at Soma’s collar. “My father… was King Asgore Dreemurr. He cared about me so much, he loved me so much…” The king’s voice cracked despite his best efforts. “But he couldn’t be there enough for me when I needed him, no matter how hard he tried. Such was the life of a king. In the end, after years of regret… he sacrificed himself for me. He died so I could live.”

Soma felt a pang of pathos strike her heart, although she couldn’t relate to Asriel. Neither her father nor her mother had ever seemed to care much about her at all, and they certainly had never put their lives on the line for her.

“I guess the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, huh?” Asriel forced himself up and pulled himself away from Soma in a show of strength, but merely collapsed again.

“Y-you mean…”

“When I look at you,” he said, “I feel… I feel the way my father must have felt when he would look at me.”

“You—you _what_ _?”_ The words slid off Soma’s brain like water off of a raincoat. It didn’t make sense. Asriel had met her _yesterday._

“I cared for you from the moment I saw you. I couldn’t help myself. There you were, so brave and so scared and so alone.” Asriel turned his head so he could look at her with his good eye, vibrant, bright, and golden as the morning sun even as tears streamed from it down his furry cheek. “And a heart bigger than your sense of self-preservation.”

Soma sheathed her sword at her side, grabbed Asriel by the arm, and tried to haul him across the marble floor. The king resisted, standing up, digging his partisan into the floor for support.

“But I can’t just leave you guys stuck in here!” Soma shouted at him. “We can get out together!” she insisted. _How,_ she wondered, _can he throw his life away like this?_ _For_ me?

Asriel gave her a hug, pulled himself free, and looked down the hall where the sounds of combat between Alucard and the phantom of his father still echoed. “Alucard and I… We’ll buy you as much time as I can.”

“C’mon! What about Undyne? O-or any of your _other_ friends?”

“She always told me I’d work myself to death one day. I’m sorry.” Asriel shook his head. “Soma, I’ve tried my whole life to be selfless and all it did was break my bones and keep me apart from my friends and family. I never really learned how to put my own needs first, but _you_ still have a chance.” He laid hand on Soma’s shoulders, his single golden eye wide and desperate.

Soma clutched at Asriel’s wrist, fingernails digging into his dirty and matted fur. “Shut up! This isn’t the time to run!”

“For you, it is. Soma, I know you don’t take orders from kings, but… please, listen to me.” Asriel’s claws dug into Soma’s shoulders. “This is _your_ soul we’re running around in, regardless of what claim Dracula might make to it. I might be a king, but right now, right here, _your_ life is the most important thing in the world! I want you to survive long enough to build up your strength. You’re the _only_ thing standing in Dracula’s way, and you wouldn’t survive against him right now.”

Soma let go and took a hesitant step back, clutching at the burns on her arm, knowing full well that Asriel spoke the truth. If Dracula killed her in this realm, Dracula would take sole possession over her body. There would be no hope that Soma Cruz would ever exist again. Soma had to be more prudent, more careful, and less foolhardy. If Asriel and Alucard wanted to sacrifice themselves to wear down Dracula as much as they could and soften him up… then Soma should be willing to take those losses.

She felt an ache in her heart that was almost physical. Asriel and Alucard… No other adults had ever _cared_ so much about her the way they did. Soma stumbled backward, feeling hot tears on her cheeks as her heart ripped in two. “Asriel…”

Asriel turned his back on her. “If I don’t catch up with you, go on and take care of Mom for me. She’ll be lonely without her kids around… but I think she’d like you.” He glanced over his shoulder, his eye misting up, and with a sad smile began to walk down the hallway. “On your way, Soma. Stay determined.”

Before Soma could run after him a wall of fire, amber-gold and flickering, sprang up between the two of them. Soma drew her sword, wielding it just a little less adeptly in her off hand, and struck at the wall, but even the Claimh Solais failed to penetrate it.

Unarmed and anguished both within and without, Soma did as she had been told, despite her misgivings, and ran deeper into the castle.

–

Since his mother had died on that fateful night in Wallachia over five centuries ago, Alucard had only known two things in his life: slumber and combat.

For over five hundred years every waking moment of his life, his supernaturally-endless life, was devoted solely to the destruction of Dracula and his minions.

His own father.

But Dracula was no father of his. Not anymore. He had ceased to be Alucard’s father the instant he had commanded his legions to slaughter every human they came across.

Alucard still remembered that night long ago when he’d returned to his father’s castle with his proverbial tail between his legs, his heart heavy, channels of tears still running down his pale cheeks, his mother’s dying words still echoing in his head.

_Do not hate humans. If you cannot live with them, then at least do them no harm, for theirs is already a hard lot._

Per his mother’s dying instructions, Alucard had delivered those words to his father.

Lisa had told Alucard that she would love his father for all eternity. But Dracula betrayed her memory in an instant, flying into a rage upon hearing the news of her murder. The war between the legions of Castlevania and the human race began that night, and Alucard chose to fight for the humans—the unwashed, unworthy humans—his mother had cared for.

He still fought for them.

Sword met sword; Durandal against blades of black fire. Dracula darted around the hall, the air his to command, bat-shaped living shadows fluttering from under his cloak and flying on a bitter wind with razor-tipped wings. Alucard found himself on the back foot, struggling to breach Dracula’s defenses. His father had always only ever fought his hardest against his most ancient and bitter enemies: the Belmont clan… and _him._

Alucard dodged salvo after salvo, getting strikes and ripostes in when he could, a hollowness gripping his heart.

Alucard fought Dracula as a bat, as a wolf, as mist; he fought Dracula with fire and sword; he called upon every dark art he had learned to match the fury and relentlessness of his father.

Yet still he faltered.

He tasted his own blood, smelled his own desperation in the coppery warmth.

Could it be his time? Was he finally wearing thin at long last?

A blazing spear of golden-white light, thrown like a javelin, struck Dracula in the thigh, driving him back before he could deliver a killing blow. He snarled as he grabbed the spear shaft and tore it from his bloody flesh.

A soft, furred hand fell on Alucard’s shoulder.

Alucard and Asriel shared a glance, their golden eyes meeting. For all their differences and disagreements, here at this moment, in this place, after the gauntlet of Castlevania had battered and beaten them both, they were the same.

A prince and a king, both of separate realms of monsters, both imbued with the compulsion to shoulder the burdens of others above all else, both willing to fight to the last breath.

Neither expected to leave this chamber alive, but both hoped that perhaps Dracula wouldn’t either.

–

“Let me tell you,” Dracula snarled at Mina, spitting the words out with utter contempt, his fangs flashing in his mouth as he made his next move, “little girl… of _love._ Love,” said Dracula, “is nothing but the seed from which hate grows. Do you understand _hate,_ girl? Do you _really_ understand it?”

Mina shook her head. To be quite honest, she tried very hard not to hate people—although some of the people in this wretched castle had been making that very difficult for her. “No,” she said, putting another black stone on the board.

“I can smell a liar,” Dracula hissed. _“You know._ For you see, Miss Hakuba, when you love somebody, you doom yourself to hate the ones who take them from you. And I took your dearest from you. Your Soma Cruz— _gone_ now. Forever. Hate me, Mina Hakuba! Spit on me and curse my name!”

Mina made her next move and captured a small collection of Dracula’s shimmering translucent stones. Try as she might, she couldn’t _hate_ Dracula, only pity him for the same reason she’d pitied Chara when they had poured their heart out to her. “Please tell me about her.”

Dracula sighed and gazed into the distance. “Her name was Lisa. Lisa Fahrenheit. Oh, yes, she was kind. Yes, she was compassionate. Yes, she saw herself in everybody she met and loved them as she loved herself. And all that kindness, all that compassion, all that empathy did _nothing_ for her.”

He plucked a stone from his bowl and placed it on the board before his fiery, blood-red eyes latched onto Mina yet again.

“Just as it will do nothing for _you.”_

Mina kept playing. “W-we will see, sir.”

“They burned her, my dear Lisa,” Dracula whispered to Mina, a haunted glaze settling over his eyes as he made his next move. “She spent years _helping_ humanity. Curing their illnesses, treating their wounds. She was a saint among women, though she lay with the devil. And they—those poor, filthy, stupid humans she called her neighbors—repaid her hospitality, her generosity, with fire.”

“I-I’m sorry,” Mina stammered. Dracula was even more like Chara than she’d thought. And that made her feel just a little more confident as she surveyed the growing complexity of the board and plotted her next move, that if she could speak to _their_ heart, then Dracula…

“Do not waste your breath apologizing for your species.” Dracula leaned in and his face, his unsettlingly wrong face, inched closer towards Mina’s. _“_ _Nothing could forgive such evil,_ _”_ he whispered, his breath even colder than his hands.

“But _she_ must have.”

“Yes. Because she was a foolish idiot, like all of her species.”

–

The battle dragged on. Alucard wondered whether time passed in Soma’s soul at the same rate it did outside. Perhaps time was slower in this metaphysical castle than it was in Dracula’s castle, just as time ran slower in Castlevania compared to the outside world.

Was Castlevania still trapped in the eclipse, or had it been brought into the real world? Who was fighting Dracula right now on the outside? Was it Julius? Was Julius okay? What about Yoko?

These questions filled Alucard’s mind as he and Asriel fought against Dracula’s projection.

It was that moment of distraction which led to a sword tearing through Alucard’s chest.

–

Soma dove behind a suit of armor around the corner of a T-shaped hallway, catching her breath as quietly as she could. In this labyrinthine castle, there was no way to tell how well Asriel and Alucard were doing, or how close or how far away Dracula was if they had…

 _Dammit!_ Soma rested against the empty armor, laying her sword across her lap . Her right arm still stung everywhere, her blackened and charred wrist so badly burned Soma felt bile rise in her throat if she made the mistake of glancing at it. _Those fucking morons! Sure, my body’s a little squishier now, and yeah, I’m down an arm now, but if they’d just let me fight with them…_

“ _Running away, are we?”_

Chara emerged from behind another suit of armor on display on the opposite side of the corridor, draped in shadows like a thick cloak and cowl around their shoulders. “That’s not the Soma _I_ know.”

“ _Chara?_ How did you—”

Chara shrugged. “I’d like to know myself, but you seem a bit preoccupied to answer my questions right now.”

As they stepped out of the shadows Soma noticed two long, pointed tufts poking out from Chara’s mop of blood-matted hair. Big, pointy, triangular ears covered in reddish-brown fur. And behind Chara was a matching tail, long and bushy with a silvered tip, twitching back and forth as if it had a will of its own.

“Oh, uh, Chara, you—” said Soma, realizing exactly what she’d done to them when she’d fed them the soul from that inkwell. As it had turned out, making them drink a kitsune _did_ have unforeseen consequences. “I—I’m sorry.”

“For bringing me back to life, I take it? Yes, you _must_ stop doing that.” Chara shook their head. “I don’t like it.”

Soma heard a floorboard squeak nearby. _“Keep your voice down,”_ she hissed. _“Dracula’s out here.”_

“Dracula?”

Soma recounted her situation as quickly and breathlessly as she could, stumbling over her words in her haste, until Chara put a hand on her shoulder, offering with it more comfort than Soma felt entitled to receive. “Give me your coat, Soma.”

Soma caught her breath. “Wh—what?”

“In the worst case scenario…” Chara sighed and looked down on the floor. “Alucard and As… a-and Asriel won’t come back.” The hand they had on Soma’s shoulder trembled. “When Dracula shows up… I’ll pretend to be you and lure him away.” A ghostly silver saber coalesced in Chara’s hand and they staked it into the floor. “You’ll sneak up behind him and kill him while he’s busy chasing me.”

Soma pulled off her coat despite her misgivings, the soft scraping of the fabric igniting the pain in her burned arm. How could she end Dracula with one strike, when Asriel and Alucard had struggled so much already?

Chara did a double-take as Soma handed her prized white coat to them. “You’ve changed,” they said.

“Yeah, it’s kinda like—have you ever gotten something,” Soma asked, “that you never knew you wanted, but once you got it, you felt like you’d always wanted it?” _Shame,_ Soma thought, _I don’t have the time here to appreciate this gift._

Chara nodded. “You mean like my brother? The one who’s, um…” They let out a sigh, their face growing crestfallen. Soma didn’t have anything to say to them.

With that remark hanging in the air Chara shrugged out of their black coat and pulled Soma’s coat over their shoulders, then handed the black coat to Soma. She threw it on without the slightest hesitation, again ignoring the electric pulses of pain from her right arm, and drew the Claimh Solais, her blistered and charred right arm still hanging uselessly at her side.

Chara pulled Soma’s coat tighter around their thin, lanky frame. It was a long shot, but in that guise, they could possibly fool Dracula for a second or two. And if Soma struck at just the right time, in just the right place, that second would be enough.

“So, uh…” Chara reached up, slowly and gingerly feeling their way around their head. Their ears twitched as their fingers brushed against them. Soma had no idea how they’d take it, considering how loath they’d always been to accept the help of her ill-gotten abilities. “While we’re waiting to die horribly and join my brother in the undiscovered country, mind telling me where _these_ came from?”

“I fed you one of my souls. A kitsune. I had to do it,” said Soma, “or you would’ve…”

Chara peered down over their shoulder and finally noticed their newest appendage as it swished experimentally from side to side. Their eyes widened in shock. Soma tensed up. _Oh, great._ _Now_ they’re _gonna kill me._

Chara smiled, flashing teeth that were a little sharper than the average human’s now. Their eyes _literally_ lit up, a luminescent silvery-orange disk flickering behind their pupils like the eyes of a cat in the dark. “Soma, I can think of some very sappy things I could say to you that I’d rather not.”

The sound of footsteps from around the corner came closer, and Soma could feel the air growing colder. Dracula was drawing near.

It was time. Every muscle in Chara’s body tensed up. _“_ _Theirs not to make reply,”_ they whispered, _“t_ _heirs not to reason why,_ _t_ _heirs but to do and die. Into the valley of Death_ _r_ _ode the six hundred.”_

Soma took it Chara had little confidence in what the two of them were about to do.

She steeled herself, swallowing a lump in her throat and letting her memory of Asriel and Alucard galvanize her against Dracula. One shot. She would only get one shot…

–

“Oh, darling Mina.” Dracula shook his head. “Appeal to my humanity, will you? I hate to inform you,” he said, his cold and foggy breath hanging in the air, “that I _have_ no humanity. _That_ is what it _means_ to be Dracula.” He stood up, glaring down at Mina, his face— _Soma’s_ face—twisted in a sadistic grin as his next stone slammed into the grid. “You stupid girl, imbeciles among imbeciles! Do you think you could _convince_ me to bring Soma back to you?”

“But…” Mina’s voice caught in her throat as she placed another stone, realizing only after her hand had left the piece that she’d granted Dracula an opening. “Soma _can’t_ be gone.”

“Shall I make it _clearer_ to you?” asked Dracula, a note of irritation entering his voice and growing into a symphony as his hand flew across the board. “Immature little brat! Soma Cruz isn’t just _dead._ Soma Cruz is _more_ than dead. Soma Cruz was never _alive._ You phenomenal idiot!”

“No!” This time, it was Mina’s move that produced a sharp, resonating ringing sound across the board.

“ _Your dear friend never properly existed at all._ _A_ _fantasy, a vision, an illusion. I can no more bring_ _Soma Cruz_ _back than you can recall a dream you had a fortnight ago!”_ Dracula began to laugh, his derisive and mocking laughter searing through Mina’s ears.

“So…” Mina racked her brain. There didn’t seem to be anything left within Soma but Dracula, but if she gave up hope, she might as well have just let herself die. He must still be in there, struggling. There had to be something she could use to draw Soma out of Dracula, something to give him strength.

“So you think you can tell…” she began, “heaven from hell… blue skies from pain… Can you tell a green field from a cold steel rail…”

Dracula fell silent, the laughter dying in his throat, and closed his eyes. “A smile from a veil…”

Mina couldn’t help but smile. Only Soma would recognize the lyrics to a sixty-year-old song! And that meant that Soma _was_ still in there, and Mina still had a chance!

 _Fight him, Soma! Stay strong! Take control!_ Mina shivered in anticipation. As Dracula squeezed his eyes shut, a pained look gripping his face, Mina knew that somewhere inside him, her best friend was standing tall against the devil that had possessed him.

–

Dracula limped down the hall, his verdant robes in tatters, his pale face grimy and bloodstained. He _limped._ As Soma glanced around the corner she felt her heart leap. Asriel—Alucard—They had not given their lives in vain!

Soma couldn’t help but notice Dracula half-humming, half-muttering a tune as he came closer. _“Did they get you to trade_ _y_ _our heroes for ghosts? Hot ashes for trees?_ _Hot air for a cool breeze…”_

That bastard. That was hers and Mina’s song!

As Dracula reached the junction Chara bolted across the hall, Soma’s white coat fluttering behind them. In the gloomy castle, wreathed in shadows, it was a convincing enough illusion for half a second, but Soma could only pray it would work.

Dracula took the bait. “There you are,” he called out, turning the corner and going after Chara, “you miserable worm!”

He had his back turned away from Soma.

This was it. Dracula wouldn’t be fooled for more than a meager instant. If Soma skewered him right in his heart… it would _have_ to work. She had to believe it would work and try with all her might.

Soma charged at Dracula with the blade of the Claimh Solais held out.

Time seemed to freeze.

And Dracula looked back.

And he smiled.

–

Dracula placed another stone on the board, ignoring one of the weak spots Mina, in her fear, had failed to shore up. “You’re right, Mina Hakuba.”

Mina felt her spirits lift. “S-Soma…”

“You were right.” Dracula opened his eyes, licking his lips and capturing another set of Mina’s stones. “There you go, catching me in a lie. You were right. Soma is still in here. I _could_ bring your dear friend back… easily, in fact… but, you see, little girl…” His grin stretched across his face, baring wicked fangs. “I don’t _want_ to.”

Mina’s heart fell heavy once again. She had thought she was so close… but she hadn’t made a dent in the dark lord’s resolve. Had it been hubris pushing her forward all along? Had Dracula been mocking her all along?

“Please!” Mina kept playing with renewed fervor, placing down a stone to remove one of the liberties keeping one of Dracula’s largest chains of translucent white stones alive. “Soma is my friend! You can’t just take him away like that!”

“I _can’t?”_ Dracula laughed as a white stone placed by his white fingers closed in on Mina’s black stones. “You say I _can’t?”_

“W—well,” Mina backpedaled, rushing to expand her territory on the board, “you—you _shouldn’t…”_

“What,” Dracula asked, “makes you think you are _special,_ Mina Hakuba?” There was a flicker of rage in his eyes as he continued his offensive, and Mina almost wanted to throw herself at his feet and beg for forgiveness.

But she had to be strong. She had to stay determined.

“What makes you think you _deserve_ to have your dear, darling, poor, suffering Soma returned to you? What makes you more deserving than any other miserable worm living in this purgatory of a world who has had a loved one ripped from their side?”

Mina steeled herself and planned her next words carefully, making her move before speaking. As she set her next piece on the board, she spoke. “I—”

Dracula slapped her across the face.

Mina hit the ground with her chair, one cheek numb where Dracula’s hand had smacked across it, the other scraped from its impact with the hard wooden floor. Hot tears welled up in her eyes and trickled across her nose as the weight of her body pressed her wounded arm against the floor. Nobody had ever hurt her this much before. She wanted so badly to give up. She’d been a fool to think she could defeat Dracula with words alone.

But what else could she do? Only Mina alone still had the will to challenge Dracula, foolish as she was.

“Don’t get any ideas, Mina Hakuba,” Dracula snarled. “You are _owed_ nothing and you _deserve_ nothing, just as all humans are owed _nothing_ but horrible pain and merciful death.”

Mina untangled her legs from the legs of her chair, reaching down to probe the fresh bruises on her calves.

“Get up.” Dracula glared down at her. _“Keep. Playing.”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> With regards to Chara's new look, I'd like to direct you to a passage from Chapter 22:
> 
> "Kitsunes were the worst. [Soma] wouldn’t wish this indignity on his worst enemy."
> 
> Yup, we finally got to the punchline!


	44. LOVE Reign O'er Me

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ([musical accompaniment](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PqXPW0oBKgg))

Dracula parried Soma’s strike, and with a perfect riposte returned with an attack of his own, nearly skewering Soma on the blood-red blade of Durandal. Sparks like ash and charcoal flew through the air as Soma ducked and weaved around the blazing red blade, desperation spurring her on.

Soma was no stranger to fighting. She never _had_ been. From pint-sized schoolyard bullies to street gangs to paramilitary weirdos and supernatural freaks, Soma had learned to solve problems with her fists (or whatever else was available).

She wondered if all her life, the universe had been throwing violence in her path on purpose, as some grand plan of fate, conspiring to mold her into someone capable of handling the horrors that awaited her within Castlevania—and her own soul.

Dracula and his cloak fluttered in the monochrome hallways like a living shadow, twisting and swirling, miasma given form, as the shining blade of the Claimh Solais carved electric-blue arcs through the air around him. Knives, swords, and spears, crafted from roiling glassy flames with glittering silver sheens, tore through the unnervingly-pristine alabaster stone of the fabricated castle, hemming Dracula in and tearing at his green cloak and furred mantle. Soma saw the cloak flap open and noticed that the inner lining of Dracula’s cloak was leathery and veiny, like the spindly wings of a giant bat.

Dracula danced through a forest of blades and lashed out, driving a boot into Soma’s stomach and knocking the Claimh Solais from her hand. As the hilt slipped from her blood-slicked fingers Soma scrambled backward, reeling from the blow. Dracula bore down on her.

“Foolish girl—It was _me_ who filled your heart with the will to fight! The urge to cause pain, the will to bring suffering to others… who, Soma, do you think that came from?” A stream of fluttering bats poured from under Dracula’s cloak, flowing past Soma and leaving thin, deep, smarting cuts through her skin and shredding the thick black greatcoat she’d borrowed from Chara. _“Yet still you challenge me?”_

At first, Soma had always been a selfish fighter. Self-defense had been her only priority.

And then she had met Mina. And everything had changed.

Nothing Dracula could say would make Soma forget that it was _her_ Soma had fought for.

Because Mina had been just like her. And now, because of that, Soma fought for other people, too. Strangers, even. _Enemies,_ even. Like Asriel had said, Soma didn’t have an ounce of self-preservation in her body.

Sometimes that was a character flaw. Here, it was perhaps the only thing that truly set Soma apart from Dracula.

“ _Reject me if you wish—”_ Dracula flung out his arms and filled the corridor with twisting tongues of flame, _“but without me you are_ nothing!”

Soma scrambled out of the path of another burst of crackling black fire torn from Dracula’s body like a shadow set alight. Dracula’s next swing of his sword anticipated her movement, the blade falling in an arc she couldn’t stop quickly enough to avoid.

Until the silvery shaft of a flaming spear fell in front of Durandal, the edge of the legendary sword’s blade throwing up a shower of sparks.

As Chara held Dracula off Soma skidded across the floor and snatched up the Claimh Solais where it had fallen. The sword became light as a feather and blazed with holy light.

The Claimh Solais.

The Sword of Light, once wielded by Nuadha of the Silver Hand. A sword of legends and heroes. As long as it brightened the air in Soma’s hand it was proof of her noble spirit.

–

Mina lay on the cold floor in Dracula’s chamber, focusing on nothing but the throbbing pain from the bruises covering her body. She’d been so foolish. So, so foolish. She’d allowed Dracula to take her here, in this room deep within Castlevania where nobody could find her, agreed to play a game in which whether she won or lost made no difference, all because she’d been stupid and naive enough to think she could _change Dracula’s mind._

“I told you,” Dracula growled as he stood over Mina. “Keep playing.”

Mina stood up, scuffed knees wobbling. Dracula looked down on her with bemusement as she righted her overturned chair and returned to her seat, once more surveying the go board, the pattern of black and white spread across the grid, of stark colors vying for territory across the polished wood. Mina was at a disadvantage, but the game could still go either way… for whatever that mattered.

“I… I don’t understand,” she said as she placed another stone on the board.

“Of course you don’t,” Dracula sneered as he pondered his move. “You’re a stupid, sheltered little girl whose parents never let her grow up. Everything you know about the world outside your little shrine came from dusty books and boring nature documentaries and a boy with worse taste in music than he had in fashion. Your parents hid you from the world because they feared that one day you would meet someone like _me._ You were born in ignorance, Mina, you lived in ignorance, and you are going to _die_ in ignorance.”

He placed down a stone, killing the only liberty keeping Mina’s largest group alive, and laughed at his triumph.

–

Blade met blade, silver on black, blue on red, sparks on sparks.

“You’re wasting your time,” Dracula hissed. “I am your past, your present, your future—your beginning, your being, and your end—your parentage and your purpose!”

“You might be my past,” Soma snarled, digging in her heels as she parried Dracula’s strike, the red light emanating from Durandal searing her eyes, “but not my present! And _not my future!”_

“ _I AM EVERYBODY’S FUTURE!”_

Soma gritted her teeth, her single good arm trembling as she held it against Dracula’s strength. The cross of the two swords, blue-white and red-black, separated Dracula’s snarling face into uneven quadrants. _“You_ _… you had your chance to make your mark on the world… and you won’t have another!_ _For creatures like you_ _…”_ Soma locked her elbow and pushed Dracula’s blade back. _“…Eternal rest… means ETERNAL!”_

Soma ducked under Dracula’s blade and rolled out of its path, striking his kneecap with her boot as Durandal’s blade came crashing down and scored the floor.

Black fire ignited around Dracula and flared out from him like flickering, wavering wings as the vampire lord rushed forward, toward Soma, all the while she had frozen up—

And he may as well have flown into a field of broken glass. Blood gushed in long, trailing spurts from Dracula’s limbs as a forest of nigh-invisible blades traced deep lacerations in Dracula’s flesh. He screeched in agony as the forest grew around him, slicing through his arms and torso, cutting slivers of his skin, turning his splendid robes and fur cloak into ragged tatters.

Dracula’s silhouette shifted, his body and cloak shrinking into the form of a vampire bat to escape the long knives impaling him. As he flapped his leathery wings and flew at Soma, he stopped short in midair as if held by an invisible tether and smacked against the floor.

With a flick of their wrist Chara dragged Dracula closer as he returned to humanoid form, and for a brief instant Soma could see a long and fiery lasso wrapped around his ankle before it flickered out of the visible spectrum. “I’m not done with you, Dracula. Stand up and face me.”

Dracula laughed. _“You?”_ He glanced between Soma and Chara. “You would _die_ for _this_ whelp?”

Chara crossed their arms. “Of course not. Surely you must realize by now that I’m invincible.”

Dracula stood up, blood pooling at his feet as his wounds healed. As Soma watched the vampire lord’s cuts shrink and wounds heal, memories flickering through the corners of her mind, she realized that Dracula wasn’t using even a fraction of his powers. He’d defeated Asriel and Alucard by exhausting the already-weary challengers, counting on his superior regenerative abilities to wage a battle not of might but of attrition.

Dracula was doing the same to Soma and Chara right now.

A smile tugged at Dracula’s pale lips as a spear of black fire coalesced in his off hand.

 _He’s copying Asriel’s techniques,_ Soma realized. Across from her, Chara’s eyes went wide, shock and anger writ all over their face. _He’s trolling us._

Chara charged at Dracula.

 _And dammit,_ Soma thought, rushing in so that at least that suicidal idiot wouldn’t immediately forfeit their life, _it’s working!_

Blades, red and black, crossed with silver and blue. Dracula fended off Soma almost carelessly as he focused on Chara. “What does Soma have to offer you, Chara?” he asked them. “She wants nothing to do with my castle, true, but the last thing she would do is hand it over to the likes of _you.”_

“And _you_ would?”

“You know what it feels like to lose someone you love at the hands of humans, do you not? We are kindred spirits!”

“You want me to rule by your side? Is this a marriage proposal?”

Dracula’s next strike threw Soma across the hall, leaving him to turn his full attention on Chara. A gust of bitter wind, blown by the swing of his cloak, caused Chara’s fiery arsenal to flicker and sputter. “Join me, Chara Dreemurr. We share a mutual hatred of the human disease. Together we can cleanse the Earth of the scourge of humanity. The moon will never set on our empire of monsters!”

–

As the game wore on, Mina tried not to listen to Dracula any more than necessary to plan her next rhetorical move. He only cared about breaking her spirit; he had nothing valuable to say to her otherwise. “I don’t understand,” Mina sniffled, wiping away her tears on the sleeve of a robe that was now nearly black with dirt and grime, “how you can take the pain you suffered and decide that everybody else deserves to feel that way. It—it’s not fair, or right, or just, and it won’t make anything better! It won’t even make _you_ better, Mr. Dracula, sir.” Her next move preserved one of her groups in a state of _seki,_ or “mutual life,” with one of Dracula’s groups.

 _Please listen to me,_ Mina thought. _I_ know _you’re in there somewhere, Soma. I will drag you out of him if it’s the last thing I do._

“Bother me not with trite sentimentality.” Dracula took his turn. “The _world_ is not fair, or right, or just.”

“But Lisa was. Wasn’t she?”

Dracula’s eyes seemed to darken like aging embers in a fire, the red glow fading away. Once again, he took his turn without saying a word to Mina.

“She loved you and put her trust in you.” Mina’s heart skipped a beat as the words left her mouth. “I think, deep down, you still want to show her that her trust was not misplaced.” She captured one of Dracula’s groups, ringing a chain of his white stones with her black stones.

–

For a moment, the hallway went silent. Chara and Dracula stared at each other, their weapons at their sides. Soma picked herself up off the floor, leaning against a decorative suit of armor as she fought to regain her breath. She felt her stomach drop out of her. Chara wasn’t… actually _considering_ Dracula’s offer, were they?

“You… want me to _join_ you?” Chara asked, their voice small and timid.

Dracula nodded.

“ _You want me to join you?”_ Their face hardened in anger. _“You slaughtered my brother like an animal and YOU WANT ME TO JOIN YOU?”_

With a hoarse cry Chara lunged at Dracula, all but flying at him with a shimmering heat-haze and a burst of silvery fire surrounding them like a meteor burning through the Earth’s atmosphere.

Dracula flung out his hand, fire crackling in his palm as he aimed his arm like a cannon at Chara.

Everything went quiet.

A silent lance of darkness cut through the air, piercing Chara through the heart as it kept going perfectly parallel to the corridor’s floor, ceiling, and walls.

Chara stared ahead in shock, red eyes wide behind cracked and dust-speckled glasses.

The perfectly-white far wall where the beam terminated erupted in a shower of dust and debris, the shockwave tearing away the walls and ceiling. Soma felt the ground shudder beneath her feet, throwing her backward as the castle around her disintegrated.

Whatever shout had torn itself from Chara’s lips as the beam of darkness incinerated their heart refused to travel through the air.

As Chara’s body crumpled and collapsed, silver fire ate away at them from their fingertips inward until not even a speck of dust was left.

Sound returned to the world, a cacophony of rumbling and screeching as gut-churning bass frequencies and squealing screeches shook every stone in the copied castle.

In the burst of the castle’s agonized screams, Soma regained her desperation, her will to fight, and threw herself at Dracula with a hoarse and monstrous yell.

“ _And now,”_ Dracula said with a feral grin, hissing his words through his fangs as his eyes lit up with delight, _“the finale!”_

Dracula’s cloak unfurled and transformed into four long and spiny bat wings sprouting from his back in an X, revealing underneath the former cloak a lithe and deceptively lightly-armored body. Black fire filled the air, a spinning mandala wheel of flames and leathery wings with Dracula at its center drawing Soma in as much by her choice as not; as she charged the vampire lord, boots slapping against broken and cracked stone and slipping across pulverized gravel, she couldn’t slow down or turn back even if she wanted to.

Soma’s blade dug into Dracula’s chest and came out his back with a spurt of steaming blood. Although the sword had not pierced his wicked heart, Dracula screeched in agony as the Claimh Solais’ holy metal burned his insides, his mouth gaping and his eyes squeezed shut, pain traced in every line of his face. He swung Durandal blindly and the sword tore into Soma’s side, ripping through her and sticking in her waist, the pierced flesh smoking and burning where the sword’s blade lay against it.

This was it. This was the end. Soma had failed.

“Even if you _could…_ do you truly think killing me here would even _solve_ anything?” Dracula screamed as Soma gritted her teeth against the pain. “You gain nothing from killing me here except to prolong your inevitable, lonely death! You would have better spent your last moments—” he wrenched the blade in Soma’s side, and Soma cried out in agony— “slitting your own belly in ritual suicide, like the samurai of old!”

Soma felt blood, hot and overwhelmingly metallic, fill her mouth. The stench of it reached her nostrils and she gagged just as much on the odor as she did on the liquid that was choking her. Finally she opened her mouth and let the blood gush out like water from a gargoyle, pouring down her chin and soaking her shirt as she choked and struggled to breathe.

“I commend you, though, Soma…” Dracula grinned. “You and Chara… were a surprising challenge.”

Dracula planted his boot on Soma’s abdomen and pushed, sliding Durandal out of her side and the Claimh Solais out of his own chest. Soma clutched at her side in a futile attempt to staunch the bleeding and preserve her miserable, agony-wracked existence for just a few meaningless seconds more, a wretched gurgle tearing itself from her mouth as every metaphysical cell in her mental avatar seemed to throb with hazy pain.

But as her fingers brushed against her skin, she found nothing there but a smear of blood. And no burns on her arm, either. Soma looked up at Dracula, confused. Could it be that he… was _sparing_ her?

“You’ve endeared yourself to me, Soma Cruz.” Dracula cocked his head. “You’ve been stripped of every supernatural power you’ve gained, reduced to a mere mortal leaning on a magic sword as a crutch, yet still you’ve managed to survive against the Lord of the Night. A part of me almost wants to _reward_ your tenacity. So why don’t you… surrender?”

“ _Surrender?”_

“Think about it.” Dracula swept his cloak around the floor. “After what you’ve discovered in here, returning to your physical body would only cause you angst and depression. I can permit you to stay here and remain in your current form indefinitely, provided you behave yourself.”

Soma didn’t buy Dracula’s offer for a second. All he wanted was to offer Soma a moment of hope that her life would be spared before he would snuff it out. “Sounds boring.” She noticed the floor glitter, just barely, out of the corner of her eye, and let out a deep, resigned sigh. “Go ahead and kill me.”

“You shouldn’t think so little of me, Soma,” Dracula said, shaking his head. He held up Durandal as it shone with blood-light. “After all, we know each other’s hearts so well…”

Blood spurted from Dracula’s side as a gaping wound opened up; a barely-visible blade flickered and smoked, translucent like glass. Dracula let out an ireful snarl and lashed out blindly with Durandal, its blade tracing a bloody red arc in the air.

A ghostly saber stood in front of Durandal’s path. Soma couldn’t believe her eyes. Chara—their fangs bared, eyes wild, ears pressed back against the sides of their head—was somehow alive, even though Soma had seen them disintegrated with her own eyes.

Dracula’s sword passed through the silver sword as if it didn’t even exist and cut through Chara’s midsection like butter. Chara’s body vanished in a flurry of wispy, silvery flames and a shower of sparks.

Another Chara ran toward Dracula from some hiding place among the rubble, skidding across the floor behind Dracula’s back. At once Dracula drew his sword and cut down the projection, enraged by the subterfuge he’d fallen victim to.

No blood spewed from the wound—only more silvery fire and smoke, and the disarmed Chara threw back their head and laughed derisively before the rest of their body disintegrated.

And a third Chara stepped out from behind the left-hand door, striding jauntily over to Dracula as their mocking laughter rang through the air. His entire body trembling with rage, Dracula spun around and readied his blade.

Chara was still laughing. “You think this is the _real_ Chara?”

Dracula’s eyes darted across the room, scanning for any sign of Chara’s _real_ body—

And then Chara flung out their hand, and at their command Dracula’s throat exploded in a shower of blood. _“It is!”_

Soma took her chance.

–

Dracula shook his head condescendingly, and Mina feared her gambit, her mad attempt to make peace with this master of evil, would end here. “You must be very brave, girl,” he said, bolstering his defenses on the board, “or very stupid.”

“W-well,” Mina stammered. “I—I read a lot, so I must be very brave.”

Dracula, threw back his head, and laughed, treating Mina’s response like a real knee-slapper. And then, abruptly, he fell silent. The imperious voice of Dracula booming from Soma’s mouth faltered and he leaned closer to Mina, pulling himself nearly all the way across the table, his nose almost brushing against hers as he stared at her a confused, vulnerable, and _small_ look on his face. Mina stared into his burning-coal eyes and saw a veil of tears shimmering in front of them, clouding them.

–

This time, the Claimh Solais pierced Dracula’s heart. And as they did, inky tendrils of solid shadow poured from both entry and exit wound and filled the ruined hall, and both Soma and Chara found themselves thrown through the crumbling wall. As Soma flew through the air a hand brushed against hers, and kept aloft through jets of flame, she and Chara landed, more or less safely, inside a massive alabaster hall filled with arcane glass and metal tools.

–

“ _Adrian, why?” Dracula roared as the whip cut through his thick hide again and again, his claws scrabbling at Alucard’s enchanted armor as the two of them wrestled. Alucard glared at him, and despite the deep red lacerations traveling diagonally up his beautiful face, the look in Alucard’s eyes… his_ son’s _eyes… more than just determination there, there was hatred, even_ disgust.

_Disgust?_

_For his own father?_

_What had happened to filial piety? How could Lisa—Dracula’s beloved, darling Lisa, the first woman he’d loved in centuries and the one he’d loved above all others—have poisoned his only son against him?_

_Had it not been enough for Lisa to die? Was she mocking him from the afterlife now?_

_Dracula pulled himself free of his traitorous son and jammed a clawed foot into his abdomen; Alucard howled with pain as the talons tore through his armor and flesh._

_Lisa and Adrian (now Alucard, the impertinent brat, what kind of juvenile attempt at rebellion was that?) had been everything to him._

_His family had been everything to him._

_If humans were going to take everything from him, then_ he _would take everything from_ them!

–

Soma picked herself up off the floor as the ballroom trembled, the gargantuan crystal chandelier above her swinging and shaking.

Through the aperture in the opulent marble wall Dracula slid out, gliding through the air with shadows flowing out of his chest and trailing behind him like the train of a bridal dress. Ripples of ebony fire emanated through the air around Dracula, and as he raised his hand every object in the massive chamber seemed to be filled with an urge to fly to his side.

Dracula drew back his arms and raised his head skyward, his clawed fingers splayed out, as stone, splintered fragments of furniture and cloth, gold and silver and jewels torn from the walls and ceiling themselves, and glass and crystal beakers and flasks torn from the hall’s many shelves and desks sailed through the air toward him. A clockwork model of the solar system began to spin as it slid off one of the desks, falling to the floor before it flew up to join its brethren with Dracula.

–

_Alucard wrapped his arms around the thick, obsidian-scaled reptilian arm of Dracula’s monstrous true form, pinning the vampire lord back as Trevor Belmont’s consecrated holy whip burned its way through his flesh._

_Dracula screamed and cried. The pain was like nothing he’d ever felt since…_

Him.

_Leon. His old friend from the Crusades, so many centuries ago, faded in the mists of time and memory._

_That whip was_ his, _wasn’t it?_

–

The myriad detritus of the castle orbited Dracula like the rings of Saturn as they crumbled into dust. Soma felt her her teeth rattle, as if Dracula’s gravity would pluck them each and all from her jaws. Instinctively, she held her hand up over her mouth as if _that_ would stop them. Even the marrow in her bones seemed to be resonating.

Chara shot her a fearful glance as they fought with Soma’s coat, which had seemingly started to liberate itself from their shoulders. After a few moments of struggle they shrugged out of the coat and let it fly toward Dracula. Soma’s precious coat tore itself apart as it joined the rest of the rings surrounding Dracula’s body.

Dracula threw his arms out and the black tendrils rushed forward, coalescing into a scaly black hand, each of its talon-capped fingers the size of a man and each glinting onyx talon twice as long.

The hand followed Dracula’s direction and headed straight for Soma.

Soma didn’t know what to do.

–

_The night he'd lost everything, Dracula sat alone at the long table in his banquet hall. The roast chicken on his plate, perfectly seasoned and still steaming, brought him no joy. The luscious, moist, tender meat, so juicy and bursting with the flavors of dozens of spices from lands far away, tasted like ashes in his mouth. Like the ashes that were now all that remained of his darling wife. The wine poured for him, a decadent vintage Riesling, tasted dry as a desert._

_Dracula buried his face in his hands, letting his dinner grow cold in front of him._

“Why did you do it?” _he sobbed, his errant hand knocking his wineglass down. The red wine poured across the tablecloth and seeped onto his lap._ “Why did you kill my Lisa?”

–

Chara raised their hands like a conductor guiding along a symphony orchestra frozen in time. _“Burn!”_ they shouted as the hand bore down on them, throwing out their arms the way a conductor would silence the orchestra. The vaulted marble ceiling above glittered as if there were a thousand new stars in the sky.

The shadowy hand flew toward Soma, and with no weapons, no magic powers, nothing at her disposal, her legs rooted to the floor, Soma had no choice but to throw up her hands in an instinctive, useless gesture of self-defense.

A thousand glassy knives pierced Dracula’s back and tore through his chest, mincing his clothes and flesh alike and loosing a red haze into the air. They flew in a looping figure-eight pattern, glittering like a swarm of iridescent insects as they struck and bit at Dracula’s body again and again and again, tossing him in the air and severing the tendrils of shadow binding him to the shadow hand.

A single claw came within a fraction of an inch of Soma’s nose before the connection broke, the hand collapsing into black mist and pouring across the ground.

“ _Burn, Dracula, in the light of the Invisible Sun!”_

Dracula fell through the air, blood gushing in great torrents from the gaping cavity in his chest and spewing into the air like a geyser, splattering against the vaulted ceiling high above. With one final scream, Dracula’s body ignited into a pillar of black fire as it hit the floor, boiling steam and smoke billowing out and curling underneath the vaulted ceiling and the moonlit skylight as the phantom projection was consumed by his own funeral pyre.

Chara staggered back, blood streaming from their ears, nose, and mouth, and collapsed to the floor beside Soma. Soma rushed to their side, clearing away the black miasma still clinging to the marble tiles.

–

_Dracula grabbed at a passing peasant woman, nearly tearing the shawl from her shoulders. “You there, woman, where is the lady who lived in this house?”_

_The old woman looked up at him, glancing at the ashen remains he stood in front of. “That woman, sir? Why, I’m afraid she was taken from there about a fortnight ago. We found tools of sorcery and witchcraft in there, so we…”_

_The peasant trailed off as she noticed the quiet rage on Dracula’s face. She opened her mouth once more, yet said nothing. Dracula’s fingers had curled around her wrinkly, wattled throat, cold and pale digits lost in sagging folds of skin._

“What did you animals do to her?”

_The woman did not answer. As Dracula withdrew his bloody hand she crumpled to the ground._

_Dracula turned around and on ebon wings headed for his castle before the sun could cut through the clouds and melt him as it would melt the morning mist._

–

Mina took her opportunity—her last opportunity—to press onward, both on the game before her and in her battle of rhetoric against Dracula. “Make Lisa proud, Mr. Dracula. Live up to the man she knew and loved.”

“ _My darling Lisa…”_ He closed his eyes, gritting his teeth and parting his lips to show his wicked fangs. He seemed to be in pain even as he picked up a crystalline white stone and placed it on the grid. Mina despaired. Had she gone too far this time? Was he going to _kill_ her?

“Please,” Mina said, one more time as she countered Dracula’s last move. “Let her back into your heart. Show her that she was _right_ to believe in you. And… do the right thing. Let Soma go.”

–

_Dracula trudged into town in the morning, the early-dawn fog seeming to part in his presence as the Red Sea had before Moses. He was strangely weary, though he blamed that more on the coming dawn than his long travels._

_Lisa had suggested he walk the Earth as a man, learn the ways of men, and return wiser and more… in her words,_ civilized _. He had begrudgingly accepted, and for nearly a year had explored as much of Europe as he could… without the use of his magic._

_He had learned much. He had seen much. But for the past few months all he had cared about was of seeing his darling wife’s smile, the bright sparkle in her forest-green eyes, to smell the scent of fresh rosemary on her skin as he breathed in her essence, to let his fangs just barely graze her neck as she demonstrated both her trust in him and her love for him, and he his love for her and the discipline he’d gained with her in his life._

_And his son, Adrian. Darling Adrian. What a strong young man he’d grown up to be. Strong, and beautiful, too, beautiful like his mother._

_Dracula was so lost in thought that he did not notice that his feet had carried him to Lisa’s home away from Castlevania, the house she’d done her medical work for the village out of._

_There was nothing left but ashes and skeletal fingers of blackened wood jutting from the dirt. Burned and warped medical and alchemy equipment poked out of the heaps of grayed and blackened debris, including a twisted and mangled miniature clockwork planetarium._

_No._

_No, this was where Lisa’s house was supposed to be. Where was it? Where was she?_

–

That was it. It was over. It must have been over, right? Soma pulled Chara to her side, gasping in relief. As adrenaline filled her body she was filled with the urge to hug someone, anyone, and while Soma would have rather it had been Mina, she was willing to settle for Chara.

She squeezed them as if they were the last living person on Earth, a manic laugh tearing itself from her throat. “We did it,” she cried out. _“_ _We did it!”_

“ _I_ did it!” Chara clarified, their quaking shoulders sent tremors through Soma’s chest as they began to laugh, barely able to squeak out their words. “I… _I_ defeated Dracula! At long last,” they sighed, laughing, _“I_ get to be the hero!”

Soma began to laugh, too.

Chara’s body convulsed as they rolled onto the floor, racked with uncontrollable laughter, alternating between clutching their belly and pounding their fist on the floor. Without them to prop her up, Soma fell flat on her back, her chest heaving, nearly hyperventilating. She was getting lightheaded. If she didn’t stop laughing she’d pass out.

Soma and Chara both fell silent as they tried to compose themselves and regain their wits. Slowly but surely, Soma was able to pull more air into her aching lungs, every deep breath threatening to start another convulsive fit of ugly laughter. She pulled herself onto her hands and knees, trying to stand up, but just fell over onto her side.

It was over.

It was all over.

But… if it was over, why was she still stuck in here?

–

_Dracula watched the silver-haired boy as he sat on Lisa’s knee, a thick, old book in his lap. Adrian was complaining that these musty books were so less interesting than the fencing lessons he took with Olrox, but his mother would not hear a word of his petulant grumblings. The boy whined too much, but Dracula felt a note of pride in Adrian’s choice of interests. The boy was like his father._

“ _Adrian,” Lisa said, “do you know why it is so important to study these matters?”_

_The little boy who would one day call himself Alucard rolled his eyes. “To be a gentleman…”_

“ _No, my darling.” Lisa took her son’s hand, glancing up just briefly so her eyes met her husband’s. “It is because sooner or later, somebody will ask you if you are brave or stupid… and you must be able to say honestly that you are brave.”_

_Dracula suppressed a smile. While he hated to show it, he loved his son and his wife more than anything._

–

“ _No…_ _”_ Dracula whispered. He’d forgotten about the game, not even bothering to make his next move—and yet that fact did not inspire any confidence in Mina that she had won.

Mina’s heart sank once again. Why was it that every time she felt she was reaching him, her hopes were dashed and run aground like sailing ships against jagged rocks?

“ _No, no, no!”_ Dracula stood up, leaping to his feet, and overturned the table, the intricate patterns of black and white he and Mina had created on the board sliding off and clattering to the floor along with the jars still full of stones. He howled as if racked by the most terrible of agonies.

“ _Soma!”_ Mina instinctively cried out, pulling herself away from the overturned table and glancing toward the door, hoping that perhaps if Dracula was distressed enough she could run away.

He was not.

–

_Dracula refused to allow Lisa to delve any deeper into his castle. So the woman had picked his pockets and ran off. Dracula had searched high and low before discovering her three days later in his laboratory, smugly mixing tinctures and playing with an opulent brass orrery, tracing the orbit of the Earth around its sun as a beakerful of liquid at her side fizzed and smoked. He’d felt torn between indignant and impressed with her attitude and resolve. She truly did not fear him._

_Secretly, he was glad about that._

–

As Chara pondered the same thing Soma was wondering, their fluffy ears wilted, matching the look on their face. For some reason, it was the funniest thing in the world to Soma. She started laughing again.

“What?”

Soma tried to suppress her laughter but failed. “You look like someone went to a create-your-own-JRPG-character buffet and hit ‘randomize.’”

“Don’t you dare mix metaphors like that around me.”

“I’ll mix my metaphors all I damn want to. I’ll mix my metaphors like a vodka martini. Your sense of style hasn’t progressed beyond ‘fifteen-year-old girl drawing steampunk catboys on her math homework.’”

“Neither has yours.” Chara rolled their eyes. “Besides, you have no right to judge me,” they scoffed.

“If you can do better, I haven’t seen it,” said Soma. “You look like gothic lolita Time Lord. How the hell do you go around advocating socialism when you’re dressed like some eighteenth-century English colonial governor, anyway?” Soma stuck out her pinkie and put on her most obnoxious British accent. “‘Pip pip, seize the means of production and whatnot, old chap. Labour is entitled to all it creates.’” She made sure to excessively pronounce the _u_ in _labour._ “‘Oh, by the way, the _natives_ are revolting again, we need a good famine to thin out their ranks, jolly good show, cheerio…’”

Chara burst out laughing, shaking their head like a dog that had just come in from the rain. “I guess I’m a bit of an intellectual mess, aren’t I?” They sighed. “But, uh… Soma? After everything, do you… do you think I’m a good person?”

“Um…”

“ _You can still change yourself,”_ Soma heard Chara mutter. They looked at their boots, averting their gaze from Soma. “Do you think I’m _trying?”_

“I guess.” Soma shrugged. “Saved my ass more times than I thought you would, that’s for sure.”

“And now it ends here.”

Soma morosely nodded, the weight of her situation bearing down on her. Mina was still out there. And Soma was stuck in here. Killing Dracula’s mental projection had done nothing, just as Dracula had said. “Y-yeah. It… ends here.”

This was the way her world ended. Not with a bang but a whimper.

“So it does.” Chara closed their eyes and slumped over, their breathing shallow, blood from their ears, eyes, nose, and mouth still marring their face. They’d given everything they had and then some. And it hadn’t been enough.

Soma checked their pulse just to make sure it was still steady and stood up. “I’ll go try to find Asriel and Alucard,” she told Chara as they drifted into slumber. After all, she didn’t know for certain if they were truly dead. She limped past the charred stain where Dracula had died, and realized too late that there wasn’t nearly enough mass in that pile of ash to account for _all_ of Dracula.

An icy hand clenched around her arm with an ironclad vise-grip.

–

 _It was a winter’s evening when she stepped into his castle,_ _and the sun had already set hours ago. Keeping her thick winter cloak drawn tight about her, the uninvited traveler stood beneath the chandelier in the massive, gold-festooned foyer, basking in its light and its warmth._

_She said she was a physician and her name was Lisa Fahrenheit. It was impossible, but just as impossible as the existence of the magical realm of Castlevania was… so Dracula knew she spoke the truth._

_And she stood before him, told him she demanded the use of his alchemy laboratory, and acknowledged she knew exactly who she was dealing with._

“ _And yet you make demands of me?” Dracula approached her, his cloak swirling around him like a living entity, and despite the flash of fear in her eyes she refused to shrink away from him. “Woman, you are either very brave, or very stupid,” he growled._

“ _Well,” she said, looking Dracula right in the eyes, “I am quite well-read, Sir Dracula… so I suppose I must be very brave.”_

 _Dracula bared his fangs in a wicked smile. He found himself…_ intrigued, _more than anything, with this impudent, imperious young woman. Looking up and down her body he was seized with a thirst he had not felt for over three hundred years, a thirst not for blood._

–

Mina felt Dracula’s hand around her throat, bruising her skin immediately, his cold fingers freezing the breath in her lungs, smearing blood across her neck. Dracula’s eyes were wide and wild and darkening, the fire inside them going out.

Something was happening inside him and he didn’t understand what it was. The fear reflected on his face came from the struggle within his soul.

Dracula was doing everything in his power to silence whatever Mina had awakened.

Starting with the source.

Starting with _her._

Mina’s hands pried at Dracula’s, her fingernails barely scratching his blood-smeared skin.

She couldn’t think. No words rang through her head, no sounds, no images, nothing but a panicked and nameless and primitive survival instinct that proved completely and utterly fruitless against Dracula.

–

“ _Did you think it would be so easy?”_ Dracula hissed in her ear from behind as his other hand crept around her waist. Soma could feel Dracula’s frigid breath on her neck. For an instant her skin was filled with pins and needles before the patch he had breathed on started burning numb.

 _I need a weapon._ Soma glanced around the hall. Chara wasn’t stirring at all, nestled in their coats and already fast asleep as they leaned against the railing. “Ch—” The words caught in Soma’s throat as Dracula’s breath petrified her vocal chords. _“Chara,”_ she squeaked in a voice so quiet she could barely hear it herself. _“Mina…”_

“You put up as good a fight,” Dracula told Soma, “as any tumor would. But now—”

“ _I,”_ Soma growled, _“am not a tum—”_

Soma’s mouth fell agape and the rest of the word caught in her throat as Dracula plunged his fangs into the side of her neck.

“— _oh.”_

It was a sharp prick, two of them so close together they felt like one, as stinging as a flu shot, but the effect was immediate. She couldn’t move an inch as the heat was drained out of her: All she could do was breathe and glance out of the corner of her eye at the demonic doppelganger clutching her, all the while the life ebbed away from her body.

This was how everything would end for Soma. Killed by a man with her own face.

She lost feeling in her fingers and toes first, then her limbs, as if she were being slowly whittled away. Everything she could still feel was cold, except for the hot blood pouring from her neck wound faster than Dracula could lap it up. Her breath grew shallow.

Soma could hear somebody shouting, but their voice reached her ears as if it were far, far away.

Everything was growing foggy. This was it. Soma’s eyelids grew heavy, and she knew that if she let them fall closed, she would never open them again.

She felt a pang of regret. _No one,_ she thought, _will ever know the real me. Not even Mina—she will always remember today… as the day her best friend fell to the darkness. She won’t know how hard I fought._

_She won’t know how much I wanted to be with her… not as a friend, but…_

Soma tried to hold on.

_Mina, Mina, please, I don’t know if you can hear me, but this is me, Soma. It’s me, Soma, Mina, listen to me, please, I want you to know that I love you, I love you more than anything, please, please, please be okay, Mina…_

“ _Let_ _it all_ _go,”_ Dracula whispered in her ear, drawing his fangs out of her neck and letting a fresh torrent of blood gush down her shoulder. He shoved her down to the floor, forcing her to kneel. _“_ _Let yourself fade away._ _You aren’t_ _even the_ _real_ _Soma_ _, after all_ _…_ _but you_ know _that, don’t you?_ _”_

“No—” Soma gasped. “I’m real—I’m a… a…”

–

_No matter what happens, no matter what anybody else says you are, whether you’re a human or a vampire or anything in between, you’ll still be you._

–

“ _Did you think… you were anything other than the tiniest germ of a delusion? Look at yourself. You don’t even_ look _like Soma Cruz anymore.”_

Dracula removed the hand from around Soma’s arm—her arm hung limply at her side—and dug two fingers into the holes created in her neck by his fangs. Soma felt the talons force their way in, widening the two pinprick holes. She gritted her teeth, a pained scream just barely managing to squeak out from her mouth before blossoming into a full-fledged, agonized wail.

“ _You’re just a little imaginary fragment of a fragile, tiny mind that’s already dissolved within me like sugar in water…”_ Dracula hissed as the pain reached a crescendo. _“You hardly even deserve a name of your own, little lost girl…”_

Dracula didn’t need to do this. Soma was dying anyway. He just wanted her to suffer in her final moments. Suffer for the audacity of wanting to claim _her_ body, _her_ life, _her_ future…

None of it had ever been _hers_ to begin with.

Everything, _everything_ belonged to Dracula now, the unopposed master of Soma’s mind, soul, and body.

Dracula stepped in front of Soma and leered down at her with a sadistic smile, crimson blood staining his lips and chin and trickling down his throat.

–

_Do you wish to be Dracula? …If you know the answer to my question, then you know the answer to yours._

–

Dracula drew Durandal from within his cloak and lifted it high overhead in preparation to cleave Soma in twain. “You will be missed,” he said. “But not for long, and most certainly not by me.”

“ _Dracula!”_

From out of the hallway came none other than Alucard, his coat torn, an X-shaped wound exposing bone across his torso, Asriel slung over his shoulder. Soma could see the desperation writ all over Alucard’s gaunt and weary face.

The sight of those two men, those two warriors who’d done so much and given up so much for Soma’s sake, would have lit a spark of relief within her… if they’d just shown up a minute earlier.

They had come too late.

It was over.

–

Mina didn’t realize it, but as a result of her immovable heart something inside Dracula that had lain dormant for centuries had started to move again… like a rusty, unoiled, unmaintained machine wearily pressed back into service.

And despite his best efforts, nothing he did could stop what had been set in motion.

Even with his cold, dead hands wrapped around Mina’s throat, even as he squeezed the life from her body, what had done to him could not be undone.

Yet still his fingers clung to her throat, and yet still she clung to life, though she could not fathom how.

–

Before Dracula could strike the killing blow against Soma he froze in place, his eyes widening, showing the whites surrounding his burning red-orange irises as he looked beyond Soma at something far off in the distance. His pale skin turned ashen, his mouth agape in a show of surprise. It was as if he’d seen a ghost.

Soma couldn’t rise up off her knees. She could barely feel her legs, and with every breath she took she felt her ribs ache as her lungs brushed against them. Soma could feel herself fading away, the only warmth left that of her own blood pumping in rhythmic spurts from her neck in time with her heart, drenching her clothes, and the salty tears running down her cheek and dripping off her chin. But there was something inside her.

Something inside her heart that wouldn’t let her die.

–

Soma didn’t realize it, but at her hour of need, Mina had relit a spark inside her soul. Something that lent fire to the parts of her that had gone numb.

–

_It never really leaves you…_

_But with discipline, and a strong, kind heart, Soma, you can be its master, not its slave._

–

To her dawning surprise and Dracula’s alike, Soma stood up.

“ _This is my heart,”_ she whispered as her broken skin began to knit itself back together, _“and this is my soul, and everything here is just as under my control as it is yours…”_ Her voice rose. “Everything!”

Green grass began to sprout from the white tiled floor, vines winding up the white walls, branches forcing the castles innards to bulge as they poked through. Nature, verdant and saturated with color, began to reclaim the monochrome castle. The ceiling melted away like fog in the sunlight, but the sun overhead was a ring around a black circle in a starless, ebony sky.

Black fire flickered around Soma’s blood-slicked fingers. Not Dracula’s fire, but _Soma’s._

The power of dominance belonged to Soma, too, and it extended to her own soul.

Fear filling his hot-coal eyes, Dracula unfurled his wings and took to the skies.

Feeling all of her powers and more flooding her body, Soma took off after him.

–

Tears fell on Mina’s cheeks as dark tendrils began to crawl forth from the corners of her eyes, flooding her vision with black static. The tears were ice-cold, and as they dripped across Mina’s lips they tasted coppery, not salty.

She gagged.

_Soma… Soma, help… please…_

–

Towers and crenelations sped by, white and pure against a black and featureless sky. Dracula darted between the winding heights of the copied castle, a monstrous shadowy aura encasing him, an ebony streak against a roiling obsidian clouds visible briefly as a silhouette against the castle and the thin ring of the solar eclipse hanging in the sky.

Fire lanced through the air as Soma honed in on Dracula, her superior senses in her bat form compensating for the low visibility. The two of them danced in the air, two fragments of a single soul vying for dominance.

As Soma came nearer, she returned to human form, blood streaking across her forearm and hardening to a spiny sword.

Dracula swung Durandal, its red aura searing against Soma’s eyes, and the two of them crossed blades with Soma in free fall.

Soma fell, transformed back into a bat, pulled herself upward with the wind pushing against her leathery wings, and rejoined the aerial waltz.

“ _Why, Soma, do you cling to existence?”_

A heavy, draconic claw tore through the air, carrying black mist on a sour gust of wind, knocking Soma out of the air and tearing through the leathery membrane of her right wing. Soma fell out of the air, transforming in time to reach out and grab hold of a stone balcony jutting from the clock tower.

“ _What purpose does it have?”_

Soma swung up, a green aura healing her lacerated arm. Feeling flowed back into her right hand and motion returned to her numbed fingers just in time for her to leap from the balcony and become a bat once more, narrowly avoiding a near-invisible strike of black lightning that reduced a part of the clock tower to dust.

“ _Where does the determination that lets you hold onto your self come from?”_

The dance went on, soul after soul joining Soma in her battle as she and Dracula flew over and under bridges and arches, through windows and down hallways, spiraling around each other like the helices of a DNA strand.

“ _Is your goal to live a quiet, peaceful life with your girlfriend? Have you no further ambitions, Soma Cruz?”_

Soma would pay good money for this man to shut the hell up. If anything, _that_ was driving her further along.

On her next divebomb attempt, as she shifted into human form and entered free fall she managed to jam a javelin into Dracula’s shoulder. A shadowy claw raked her chest, ripping at her shirt.

“ _Do you know where such ambitions lead? Are you brave enough to delve into those memories again?”_

Soma weaved between a machine-gun salvo of fluttering razor-sharp bat wings, straining to avoid injury, knowing that one hit could knock her out of the sky and leave her defenseless as Dracula’s projectiles tore her to pieces.

“ _Why do you seek to return, Soma, when you will simply repeat the mistakes of your past? Why subject yourself to further anguish?”_

Soma made her way past Dracula’s defenses, transformed yet again, and planted her boot on the javelin she’d shoved into Dracula’s shoulder. The vampire lord roared in pain as the weapon slid in deeper, loosing a gout of blackened blood; he and Soma careened into the side of the castle’s tallest tower.

The two of them crashed through the stone walls and fell into a monochrome carbon copy of Dracula’s throne room, Dracula sprawling on the floor in front of his ornate seat of power. He and Soma picked themselves up off the floor, shrugged off their aches, and circled each other.

The sword fell from Dracula’s hand, clattering on the floor. “Soma Cruz… I…” He looked down at the floor, and in his downcast eyes, in that face that looked so much like Soma’s own, Soma saw something almost worth pitying.

“I don’t want to go on. All I’ve ever wanted was my Lisa back. All I wanted was for my soul to join with hers at the end of all things. But for a damned creature such as myself, such a thing was beyond my reach. Therefore, I devoted myself to the destruction of the disgusting vermin who took her from me.” Dracula closed his eyes. “I grow tired of our battle. I grow tired of the constant cycle. I now wish only to consign my soul to the eternal oblivion which I am owed.”

“I—I’m sorry, I guess.”

“My soul… _our_ soul!” Dracula’s eyes snapped open and he dove to the floor, picking up his sword before lunging at Soma. “My eternal rest can only come at the cost of your existence! Soma Cruz!”

Dracula raised Durandal over his head, roaring as he charged forward. Soma took a split second to choose her weapon wisely.

Soma’s fist collided with Dracula’s chest. Her knuckles shattered but tore through the vampire lord’s body all the same, emerging from his back with a shower of black blood. Dracula’s heart lay pressed against Soma’s palm and cradled in her fingers, a rotted, shriveled, bluish-black organ that shuddered and beat for the first time in centuries and the last time in all of eternity before falling still forever.

Overhead, the eclipse cracked and shattered like glass, flooding the crumbling castle with light.

Dracula’s phantom form blew apart like a pile of dead leaves thrown around by a gust of wind, his fiery eyes vanishing last. Before his face disappeared, fading like that of the Cheshire Cat, Dracula seemed for once to be at peace.

–

Mina closed her eyes as the vise around her neck faded away.

There was darkness.

And then, light.

Grass. Stone steps leading up a hill. A torii gate.

The shrine. The Hakuba Shrine. Mina’s home. A place she had thought many times since she’d been stolen away to Castlevania that she would never see again, and in her relief and gratitude and homesickness she fell to her knees. There was grass, fresh and green and dew-soaked, under her palms. She could curl her fingers into the damp soil. Sunlight made the dewy greens sparkle and shimmer. Perfect, beautiful, afternoon sunlight.

Mina’s eyes began to water, the beautiful world around her shimmering and blurring. She wiped away her tears, and as she glanced upward a phantom caught her sight, leading her eyes as if a hook had latched onto her chin.

Standing there in front of the main hall of the shrine, flanked by statues of guardian lion-dogs…

“Soma?”

The phantom didn’t look _exactly_ like Soma. It looked different—softer, slenderer, warmer, brighter, and _beautiful,_ like an angel of light, and wore the same type of ceremonial robes Mina had worn this day—but it could be no one else than Soma.

The phantom smiled.

Soma was alive. Soma wasn’t hurt. Soma was _here_ with Mina. Nothing could convince Mina otherwise. Somehow… had she really won?

“ _Soma!”_ Mina cried out, pumping her aching and burning legs yet struggling to move forward just one inch, stretching out her hand through air that seemed as thick as tar. No matter how far she ran the distance between them only seemed to grow, until Soma raised a single pristine hand, fingertips stretched toward Mina’s.

Soma’s phantom stirred something in her heart, something Mina had never quite thought about until today. Soma had always been Mina’s only friend. Mina had never known what it was like to have a such a close friend. It shouldn’t have taken her by surprise that, given her isolation, she hadn’t recognized what it had felt like to fall in love.

She found herself reaching out, and the distance began to shrink, the world growing smaller, darkness encroaching.

At last, before the end, hand met ghostly hand, palm clasped against phantom palm, fingers intertwined with translucent fingers, and like a fisherman reeling in the catch of a lifetime Mina pulled Soma toward her, the two of them embracing, flesh against light.

At that moment, Mina and Soma were one.

At that moment, Mina saw Soma as she truly was.

Beautiful.

–

Mina.

Soma.

It’s me.

Hi, Soma.

Hi, Mina.

You okay?

Don’t worry about me. Are you…

Well, I’ve changed a bit.

No, that’s not true.

When I came here, I didn’t know who I was.

No… I didn’t know who I was long before I came here.

I spent my life wondering why I felt like the whole world was out-of-sync around me.

Like a drummer out of time with the rest of his band. Or a guitarist just slightly out of tune.

I felt like something was wrong with me.

Everybody in the world tried to give me an answer.

Those answers never really satisfied me. But I couldn’t say no to them. I couldn’t refute what they said about me. I didn’t have the words, only hollow, empty dissatisfaction. I believed them because I had no answers of my own to give. If the world said I was Dracula, then I was Dracula.

A part of me didn’t think I had a choice.

Of course you did.

Of course you had a choice, Soma.

Well, I’ve got you to thank for helping me figure that out, don’t I?

And Asriel, and Alucard. Even Chara.

Kinda.

I save your life more times than you can count and the most you can say is ‘kinda?’

You’re _welcome,_ Soma.

Wh—Chara? How’d you get in here?

It’s _your_ soul. You tell me.

Just give me and Mina a minute, will you?

Ugh. Fine.

Anyway, Mina, I know who I am now.

You see, I’ve been seeing a reflection of myself here in this castle, inside my mind’s eye.

An inner self, a pure gestalt.

And that gestalt was…

Well…

She’s Soma.

Soma Cruz.

Soma, that’s beautiful.

I’m so happy for you.

That she’s not Dracula, or that she’s a girl?

Chara, please.

Yes!

Those are both good things, aren’t they?

I’ve changed in other ways, too.

I’ll never be able to go back to the way I was before.

After all this…

Oh, Soma…

I’m a lot cooler now, aren’t I?

Soma!

Soma, you’ve always been cool!

Come on, you dork, let’s go home.

And don’t forget any of us.

I’ve been trapped inside someone else’s body once already.

It’s a miserable experience.

Oh, I’m sure you’ll make do.

For you.

Wait, are there other people inside your soul, Soma?

**Yes.**

Oh! Hello, Mr. Alucard.

**Pardon our silence. Asriel and I thought it would be prudent to let you two have a moment together.**

Gee, Chara, if only _you_ could be so well-mannered.

Hey!

Oh, shit, did I say that out loud?

Anyway, Asriel, are you all right?

_Yeah, definitely._

_Well, I mean, I haven’t been in this much pain since…_

_Never mind. I’ll be fine._

_I’ve still got plenty of determination holding me together._

Phew. That's a relief. Glad to see you're still in one piece, Da—

Asriel.

I mean, Your Highness.

All right.

So what do I do now?

Tap my ruby slippers together and say, ‘There’s no place like home?’

It’s worth trying.

**It is _your_ soul, Soma. If you believe it will work, it probably will.**

**You are not wearing ruby slippers, though. Will that make things difficult?**

Oh!

Soma!

I get it now!

No wonder you told me that story about Princess Ozma!

I had no idea it meant _that_ much to you!

Mina, please…

‘Princess Ozma?’ Care to explain?

Not here, Chara!

All right.

Let’s give this a shot.

–

For a moment, there was nothing.

–

When Soma opened her eyes she found herself kneeling on a cold wood floor in a room deep within the depths of Dracula’s castle, returned to her physical body at last. It felt dirty. Either because now Soma could finally put her finger on what was wrong with it, or because Dracula had spent who-knows-how-long doing unspeakable things while controlling it.

Mina Hakuba lay beneath her, crimson handprints smeared across her cheeks and around her neck, blood smeared over her lips. Dracula’s hands had wrapped themselves around Mina’s neck, and with a start Soma pulled them away, laying her own hands softly on Mina’s cheeks to brush away mingled blood and tears.

At the very least, her skin was still warm, but…

_Mina… God, no, if I was too late, if I didn’t make it in time, if Mina died begging for me to come through for her while I fought Dracula, I… I don’t… Mina, Mina, please, if there is a god out there, please…_

Mina opened her eyes, squinting at Soma through a veil of tears. A weak smile parted her lips, showing a sliver of her teeth. Her voice came out a quiet, hoarse, mousy croak. “Soma…?”

Awash with relief, Soma nodded. “H-Hey, Mina.”

As Mina leaned closer, brushing the blood-matted locks of hair from Soma’s forehead with a light and weak touch, the world around Soma began to spin and whirl, the people gathered around her fading into a creeping black fog.

“ _Soma, is it really you?”_

“ _It’s me,”_ Soma gasped through a mouth as dry as a desert. _“Despite everything…_ _it’s still…_ _”_

Soma collapsed on top of Mina, and before her eyes fell shut and everything went black she saw out of the corner of her eye three indistinct figures limping to her aid.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My original draft of this chapter had a lot more banter between Soma and Chara, which I sadly had to cut for pacing reasons. I like to think I preserved the best parts, though.


	45. Despite Everything, It’s Still You

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In this chapter, the long nightmare comes to an end.
> 
> ([get this ready for the end credits](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFbjOlJRyBw))

In the middle of Castlevania’s courtyard, the remainder of the castle’s revolutionary vanguard and its ragtag band of allies (the surviving mercenaries who had deserted the Green Dolphin PMC) stood, all of them staring up at the afternoon sky. It was an entirely new sight to the monsters who had spent the past thirty-six years in perpetual twilight (and had most likely lived nocturnally before then as well).

Willowrot, Chara’s second-in-command, held a wooden hand to her brow and squinted as she stared up at the cloudless blue sky. Her broken arm was still in a makeshift splint, the pale yellow-white heartwood still peeking out through splinters and cracks in the striated bark-like wooden skin coating her limbs, and lay draped across her chest. Her coat hung in tatters from her shoulders, and her cherry-blossom-pink hair was wild and snarled. “What the hell is that… _thing?”_ she asked.

“That,” Alucard said as he and Yoko Belnades tended to a recuperating Julius Belmont, “is the sun.”

Willowrot grimaced. “What business does it have being so _bright?_ You can scarcely look at it!”

“You aren’t supposed to look at it,” Yoko told her. “It’ll ruin your eyes.”

“So beautiful and yet so dangerous,” Lieutenant Warp (or was it his brother, Lieutenant Woof?) mused. Both he and his brother had taken human form in the sunlight, much to their surprise (having never lived outside of a full moon), and both of them still looked exactly alike—except that one had a thin red ribbon dangling from his left ear, and one a matching ribbon dangling from his right. “They ought to have sent a poet.”

A contingent of Mount Ebott’s Royal Guard, summoned by Doctor Alphys soon after the castle had entered normal space on top of the Royal Observatory. Among them was Captain Undyne, who’d managed to bring Yoko Belnades to safety before the young witch’s alchemical bomb had brought down the clock tower, King Asriel, who’d nearly fully regained the use of his legs after an intensive treatment of healing magic from the emergency medical technicians among the squadron, his sibling Chara—and another, altogether unexpected, member of the Dreemurr royal family.

Toriel Dreemurr, retired Queen of Mount Ebott, had gotten wind of the Royal Guard’s mobilization and had felt it her obligation to come with them and see what was amiss.

The instant she had laid eyes on her adult children, weary, beaten, battered, bloody, bruised, caked with grime, and thoroughly disheveled, she’d screamed. Asriel couldn’t blame her.

Toriel wasted no time in scolding the two of them, even as she wrapped her arms around them and all but lifted them both up off the ground in her embrace. Asriel felt as if he’d suddenly grown fifteen years younger. As long as his mother alternated between chewing him out and breathlessly inquiring about where this mysterious castle had come from, Asriel was no longer King of Mount Ebott: He was once again the young and beleaguered Prince Asriel Dreemurr whose escapades had constantly earned him trips to the hospital, and his mother was worried to death about him once again.

 _Take it easy, mom—_ Asriel wanted to say— _At least this time I’m still standing on my own two feet!_

But he couldn’t even get a word in edgewise.

“ _This,_ Asriel? _This_ is ‘guys being dudes?’ This morning, you said you would be drinking craft beers and ordering pizzas! I thought to myself, ‘why on Earth are the Royal Guard headed to the observatory?’ and here I find this castle—where did it come from, by the way?—my only children beaten half to death, and—”

“Maybe more than _half—_ ” Chara tried to interject, fishing for sympathy.

“And you, Chara, this is _your_ doing, is it not? I swear, sometimes I feel you and your brother have not matured a day since you both turned ten! Why in heavens’ name must you insist on worrying a mother to death like this?” Toriel paused her tearful rant as her paw brushed against Chara’s hair, and with a bemused expression replacing the mix of anger and concern on her face she prodded her adopted child’s new ears. “Chara… How did you get these?”

While Chara’s expressions may have been carefully measured, and their human side was very adept at hiding their emotions, their newest appendages were far less practiced and guileful and betrayed their true feelings immediately: Their ears perked up as their tail happily thumped against their legs. Asriel suppressed the urge to laugh at them. “Er… Puberty?” they answered.

“You are an adult.”

 _“Second_ puberty.”

Toriel rolled her eyes and pressed Asriel and Chara closer to her chest. “My children,” she sighed, “you two will worry me into my grave if you are not careful.” Her voice cracked. “Please, dears, just because you two are grown does not mean I don't…”

“There, there, Mom.” Asriel patted Toriel on the back in consolation and buried his weary head in her soft robes. “I’m sorry for scaring you. This whole thing… it’s well…”

At last Toriel set Asriel and Chara back on the ground. “I suppose it is a long story, isn’t it? Save it for when you’ve recovered. Oh, and also,” she added, taking a deep breath to calm herself and then resting her hands on her hips, “you two are grounded.”

Chara smothered a laugh in their throat as they caught the look in Asriel’s eye and realized that Toriel did not seem to be joking.

Undyne couldn’t help but overhear Toriel as Alphys helped her affix a replacement prosthetic forearm to her elbow, and also could not help but interject. “Your Highness, you’re not… _serious,_ are you? You can’t ground Asriel. He’s a grown man!”

“A-And the King!” Alphys added. “How can you ground a _king,_ Your Highness?”

Asriel couldn’t help but shrug. Even kings answered to a higher power. “She'll find a way.”

“Aww.” Undyne swept her king up in a bone-crushing hug, her new prosthetic digging into his ribs with a probably-unintentional amount of force. “Don’t let it get you down, Asriel! This is probably exactly the kind of break you need!”

Asriel's ribs hurt, but he did not protest against Undyne's overeager embrace. He was grateful he'd survived at all, and as his old friend smiled at him he vowed to take what she'd said to him earlier in the castle to heart.

_You don’t have to be like Dad… He wouldn't have wanted you living your life like _this.__

“Undyne,” Asriel gasped, nursing his ribcage, “why don't we hang out later? I mean, when I'm not grounded, that is.”

Willowrot laid a hand on Chara’s shoulder, standing ramrod-straight, weary yet stern, as her eyes bored into Toriel’s. “You shall not detain Chara Dreemurr,” she said. “As Sovereign of Castlevania, they have—er, um, they have that diplomacy thing.”

“Diplomatic immunity,” Chara offered.

“Yes!” Willowrot’s eyes brightened up and she snapped her wooden fingers. “They are our sovereign leader, and as such have diplomatic immunity! We will not hesitate to regard any attempt to hold them prisoner as no less than an act of war!”

Toriel looked down at her and blinked several times, her mouth slightly agape, taken aback by this strange monster’s bold declaration. “Um… I beg your pardon, miss…”

“Major Willowrot of the Vanguard of the Republic of Castlevania.” Willowrot saluted. “Right-hand woman to Chara Dreemurr.”

Chara sighed. “Stand down, comrade. This is my mother, Queen Toriel.”

“Oh!” Willowrot relaxed, dropping her stiff posture and offering Toriel her hand. Still a bit confused, Toriel took the wooden hand in her paw and shook it. “I should have known!” she said, continuing to shake Toriel’s hand as her smile widened. “Asriel looks just like you, Your Highness (except that he’s shorter, thinner, and a man, of course), and Chara surely must have gained their incredible knowledge of philosophy and politics from your tutelage. You have raised such incredible, noble, beautiful monsters, ma’am!”

Toriel couldn’t help but blush as Willowrot kept shaking her hand. “Oh, well, um… t-thank you very much, Major. I _did_ do my best.”

“I believe this is the beginning of a beautiful relationship between our republic and your kingdom. A pleasure to make your acquaintance, Your Highness!” Willowrot was still shaking Toriel’s hand. “I’m sorry if I seem excited, by the way; I sprouted while Castlevania was still sealed away in the eclipse and I’d never met a monster from outside world before (I didn’t even know there _were_ monsters in the outside world anymore) and I’ve never been out here before! Is it really _this_ bright for half of the entire day? It’s so amazing to finally, finally…”

Willowrot went on, and Toriel found her smile wearing thin as she tried to extricate her paw from the dryad’s grip as politely as possible.

Chara cleared their throat. “Comrade Willowrot…”

At last, the dryad ceased her monologue and released Toriel’s paw. “Yes, my Sovereign?”

Chara glanced at the castle’s teetering, shorn-off towers and crumbling ramparts and smiled wistfully. “I’m honored about the whole sovereign thing, really, but… tell me, what use does a republic have for a king?”

Willowrot shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know…?”

Chara patted the dryad on the cheek. “You said this was _your_ revolution, didn’t you? So take the castle for yourself. I’ve done all I can for you.” They glanced at the other monsters. “I’m appointing Major Willowrot as Lord President of the Republic of Castlevania. Is everybody okay with this new arrangement?”

Willowrot’s mouth gaped and her eyes widened, simultaneously amazed and horrified, as she watched a great deal more than half of the monsters gathered in the courtyard look around at each other and raise their hands, paws, fins, and what-have-you, some eagerly, some nervously.

“ _Me,_ Chara? But…” Willowrot gave Chara a pleading glance. “All that stuff I said was just—well, I—I’m not all that fit to lead…”

“Darling, it’s all right. You’re already doing a better job than I could’ve done.” Chara reached up and patted her on the head, ruining what little vestiges of a hairstyle she had left as they tousled long pastel pink locks already tangled, frayed, matted, and disheveled from the chaos of battle. “Now, if you’ll excuse me—”

Before Chara could pull themselves away Willowrot grabbed them and with a stunning amount of ferocity planted her lips squarely against theirs. After the initial shock wore off, Chara, much to Asriel’s surprise, hugged her back.

Asriel had the sudden urge to applaud, and after a few awkward claps, Chara pulled themselves free, flustered and red-faced. Toriel beamed with pride, excitedly clasping her paws over her chest.

Asriel tried in vain to keep his laughter to himself, and Toriel soon realized what he was laughing at and couldn't help but snicker.

“What?” Chara snapped, their voice fluttering in tandem with their heart, their rosy cheeks even rosier than usual.

“T—T—” Asriel nearly cried. _“T-Treehugger…”_ he squeaked out, clutching his side.

“S-Shut up!” Chara turned to Willowrot. “F-Flattered, ma’am, but please, take a few days to think about whether you can do better.”

Toriel rested her forehead in her paw. _“My children,”_ she muttered in a low voice just barely audible enough for Asriel to pick up, obviously disappointed in her romantically-challenged progeny, _“you are going to be the death of me.”_

–

Soma and Mina sat on a crumbling, toppled pillar in the courtyard with a thick, heavy duvet cover pilfered from one of the castle’s many opulent bedrooms draped over their shoulders as the early afternoon sunlight streamed down on the dilapidated castle. From the perspective of the rest of the universe, the solar eclipse over Mount Ebott had begun around half an hour ago and had lasted only five minutes. From Soma’s perspective, the eclipse had lasted over four agonizing hours that had felt like an eternity.

Soma’s perspective mattered much more to her than the rest of the universe’s did.

She glanced at what was left of her favorite white coat, strewn unceremoniously on the ground in front of her. Except it was barely white now: any parts that weren’t spattered with blood and other stains were crusted with mud and dirt. The back was dotted with ragged holes and the blood-soaked fur collar was slicked into wild spikes. It didn’t even look like an article of clothing anymore.

This coat had served her well for years. Soma had always felt naked without it. And now it was gone.

At Soma’s side, Mina held a borrowed phone to her ear, tearfully conversing with her parents in Japanese too rapidly for Soma to fully discern what was being said (although on a few occasions the name ‘Dracula’ stood out). At many times during the conversation, Soma felt Mina grab her hand and squeeze; Soma always squeezed back.

Mina whispered teary goodbyes to her parents and promised to see them again soon, then set the phone aside. Soma held her tight, feeling her skin, cold and prickled with goosebumps, beneath her clothes, and adjusted the heavy blanket covering the two of them. Mina sank into her arms and huddled closer, her head dipped into the crook of Soma’s shoulder and neck as neatly and perfectly as a puzzle piece.

“You all right?” Soma asked.

Mina nodded, drying her eyes. [I just needed to hear Mom and Dad’s voices again.] She sniffled. [I… I’ve never been so far away from home in my life.]

[We’ll easily get you on the next flight home,] Soma assured her. [You’ll see them again before you know it.] Mina’s parents were certainly the types who were worth missing; they’d always been kind and welcoming to Soma, even though—as Soma now knew—they’d known the truth about Dracula all along.

[Do you want to come back with me?]

[I…] Soma pondered the question. [I might stay here for a little bit, actually.] For the past two days, Soma had only ever felt like a train that had been run off its tracks. Now, standing amid the wreckage, she wasn’t sure what to do or where to go next. At the very least, though, her parents wouldn’t see her as a disappointment of a son anymore.

Now she would be a disappointment of a _daughter_ _._

Soma laughed to herself. Oh, well. That was a hurdle for another day.

[So might I.] Mina smiled. [It would be nice to see another part of the world with my own eyes. I am sure Mom and Dad will understand. We’re both nearly adults, after all.]

“And with me at your side, they’ll know you’ll be safe as can be.”

“Of course...”

Soma felt a force in her chest that was almost magnetic, tugging her toward Mina, the tips of their noses just nearly brushing against each other. Mina’s eyes, irises a pale shade of hazel in the golden sunlight, met Soma’s, and as Soma’s mouth grew dry and her pulse quickened the attractive force linking Soma’s heart and Mina’s became irresistible.

Perhaps there was still trace amounts of vampire lingering in Soma’s senses that let her read the flow of blood in other people, or perhaps she simply knew Mina well enough to tell from the heat on her cheeks, the telltale flickering of her soft eyes slightly down before refocusing on Soma’s eyes, the quickness of her breath, and the slight and welcoming tilt of her head that she was feeling the same forces acting on her body, and like all proper vampires, Soma closed her eyes and accepted Mina’s invitation.

Their lips, cracked, split, and bloody, met. A whirlwind of emotions, tastes, smells, sensation distilled to a single small act. Copper and salt, blood and sweat and tears, stale breath on stale breath, warmth growing to heat, weariness and exhilaration, grief, relief. All Soma cared about was holding Mina as close as possible, fingers clutching her waist, pulling her in, holding her to her chest tighter, tighter, tighter, Mina’s fingertips digging into Soma’s shoulders.

Of all the reasons the two of them had had to struggle, to cling to life, to persevere in the gauntlets both had endured—all were inconsequential in the heat of this single overwhelming moment. As long as the two of them kissed with the sun beating down on them and warming the cocoon ensconcing them, nothing else mattered.

 _If only,_ Soma thought, _this moment could last forever, and if only Mina could see me now the way I’d looked within my soul, then—then the world would be perfect._

They broke away too soon, gasping for breath, almost too embarrassed to meet each other’s eyes as they clung to each other.

“Let me brush my teeth first next time,” Mina said, smiling nervously.

Soma returned the smile with an equally-awkward one of her own and racked her brain for a one-liner to retort with, only to find herself rudely interrupted by a skeletal figure materializing in front of her, his scythe glinting in the brilliant sun, midnight-violet cloak fluttering in the gentle spring breeze.

Death offered a bony hand to Soma. “Well, my friend, I must say I didn’t recognize you at first. For a few minutes there I really _did_ think Graham was your reincarnation.”

Mina clutched at Soma’s arm with shivering hands and Soma felt the blood drain from her face.

“We’re not friends,” Soma insisted, looking Death straight in his hollow eye sockets. “Dracula’s gone. It’s just _me_ now.”

Death sighed. “All good things must come to an end, must they? And who knows that better than the likes of me? All the same, without a master to claim it, this castle will cease to be…

“No skin off my nose.”

Death seemed to take rejection surprisingly well. “Oh, well. I suppose I’ll find _someone_ here among these… revolutionaries who has plans for this wretched old place.” He drifted over to the monsters gathered in the courtyard, gazed up at what remained of Castlevania’s ruined towers, and began to speak with Willowrot.

Soma didn’t know Willowrot very well, but from what she knew, Soma figured that the castle would be in good hands under her command.

Once Death had floated away, Soma took hold of Mina’s hand beneath the blanket, intertwining their fingers, and for once, a part of her felt solid again, though now her pulse was too rapid for her to return to rest.

After what felt like forever, Soma spoke.

“So…” Soma felt herself shrink. She wanted to bury her face in something. “About the whole, uh, Dracula thing…”

Mina squeezed her tight. [It doesn’t bother me what you were in a past life, Soma.]

Soma wheezed a weary laugh. “I—I was gonna say ‘thanks for saving me from Dracula,’ but yeah, sure, I'll take that.” She hugged her back. 

Mina nestled herself in Soma’s embrace. [You know, back there in the shipwrecked galleon, I wanted to tell you that I never felt like I was spending time with a boy when I was spending time with you. I could feel that you were different from the moment we met. And you’re already such a beautiful person… If this is where you're headed,] she said, her hand brushing against Soma's cheek, [I don’t think you have much work to do.]

[You really thought so?]

Mina shrugged. [A bit. Soma… I love you.]

The words slipped out so casually and quickly that Soma had to let them run through her head for a while to process them. _A_ _ishiteru yo._

Nothing anybody else could say could make her heart leap the way it leaped when she heard those words! “I—I love you, too, Mina,” Soma replied, as if the kiss hadn’t screamed that same message a hundred times over. She still needed to _say_ it. The words slipped out now as naturally as breathing, and Soma could say them again and again, a hundred times, and her heart would leap each time. At last, she finally felt the sunlight on her face.

As the weight of the trials and tribulations she’d faced came crashing down on her, Soma felt the world around her fade away, the distant sound of birdsong growing faint until it vanished completely. Before she fell asleep, Mina kissed her once more, this time on the cheek, soft lips brushing against stubble Soma had always wished she didn’t have.

With Mina dozing by her side, Soma slept for the better part of the day feeling warm and contented; no dark dreams troubled her in her slumber.

–

With his dear old friend Julius Belmont and his faithful companion Yoko Belnades both sitting beside him, Alucard watched as the twisted shape of Castlevania faded into thin air, its ancient stone foundations growing wispy and insubstantial just like the phantoms the castle was full of. Within seconds the entire gargantuan hulk had disappeared, leaving only thick, verdant forest and the alabaster dome of the Royal Observatory, unharmed from the castle’s occupation, to remain. There was not a trace the castle had ever been there.

As the last flagstones of Alucard’s childhood home wavered and shimmered into nonexistence, he felt a great weight lift from his soul. He realized, finally, that his mother had been right all along; that there _had_ been a sliver of goodness still in Dracula’s heart. That deep, buried cell of humanity (or, Alucard thought, mulling over the decidedly nonhuman subjects of this kingdom and thinking of Chara’s odd little revolution, perhaps to call it _humanity_ was a bit bigoted) had grown and multiplied and evolved into a human by the name of Soma Cruz.

All of Alucard’s duties had been fulfilled—every single one of them. The evil of Dracula was no more, his castle now had new masters and a new future (perhaps even masters who would not threaten the world), the friend he’d lost was here with him again, and Soma was safe and sound and firmly in control of her own destiny. The thousand-year saga of Dracula, a story that had begun with Leon Belmont and Mathias Cronqvist in the eleventh century and ended with Soma Cruz in the twenty-first, had finally come to an end. The Belmont family line had hit its dead end, and the Vampire Killer would never have another master; as for Alucard, the Tepes bloodline he’d forsaken long ago had no chance of continuing.

It was all over.

“Hey, Yoko,” Julius whispered over Alucard’s shoulders. Healing magic had worked wonders on the massive wounds he’d suffered fighting Dracula, but despite that, he was still heavily bandaged. “I think Alucard’s sick or something. He’s doing something weird with his face.”

Yoko looked at Alucard and snickered. “He’s _smiling,_ Julius.”

“I know. I think maybe he’s dying.”

Laughter bubbled up within Alucard’s chest and forced itself up his throat and burst out of his mouth. He laughed so hard he even started to weep. He hadn’t laughed so freely since before his mother had died. For the first time, he was free, and he had friends— _real_ friends—to enjoy that freedom with.

He let gravity carry him down to the ground and lay there, staring up at the perfectly wispy white clouds hanging in the perfectly blue sky. Alucard suddenly found it delightful how the grass tickled his ears as he lay on the ground, and could only laugh harder, his sore chest aching even harder.

He caught his breath, still smiling more than he’d ever smiled since his mother had died as a sharp ache ran through his heart.

That ache…

He understood.

This… This was a wonderful way to end it all.

Julius lay down at his side. “Hell of a swan song, huh, old man?” The grin on his grizzled face was just as wide and just as weary as Alucard’s.

“That it was, my friend.” Alucard wrapped his hand around Julius’s. “That it was.” Swallowing a lump in his throat, he turned to Yoko. “Yoko?”

She looked over at him, laying a bandaged hand on his shoulder. “Yes? What is it, Alucard?”

“I have so enjoyed these past few years,” he told her. “What a wonderful travel partner you were. You… you are the younger sister I have always wanted. My mother would have adored you.”

Yoko smiled—but it was not a happy smile. It was a confused, nervous smile, the smile of somebody who thinks they are supposed to be happy but fears they will not be able to sustain that happiness. “Um… wh—what do you mean, Alucard?”

_In over five hundred years, I never once thought of replacing the family I had lost. Oh, what a fool I have been all these years… to think I would be eternally denied this happiness. At last, it has come to me again. Here, at the end of all things.  
_

“I love you, Yoko.” Alucard closed his eyes and let the warm sunlight bleed through his eyelids as the rest of the world began to grow cold. “Thank you. Thank you so very much.”

“A—Are you all right? A-Alucard?” A note of panic crept into Yoko’s voice as she knelt over him, undoing his shirt to check for any wounds that had yet to heal. “Alucard, stay with me!” The note grew to a symphony as her voice wavered. _“Alucard!”_

Alucard knew full well that Yoko would find no mortal wounds remaining on his body. He was simply, as his mother had said, living on borrowed time.

That time had finally run out, and while Alucard would have loved to spend more time with Yoko and Julius, he was simply grateful he’d lasted long enough to survive the battle against Dracula.

“Back at the hotel room, you will find my wallet. In that wallet,” he told her as he let the strength flow from his body, “you will find a card with a longitude and latitude inscribed on it. It leads to what was once Targoviste, Wallachia, the town where my mother died. Spread my dust there.”

“Alucard…” A few hot tears spattered against his cheek. The tears did not belong to him.

“I know. I know, Yoko.” He reached up, his hand feeling heavier than lead, and with all his might let his fingers brush against Yoko’s cheek. He felt the smooth skin beneath his fingertips yield to the soft, rough bandage covering the spot where King Crimson had marred her face. _I have lived for nearly six hundred years. I did not use all of those years wisely. But that was _my_ doing and _my_ choice… I cannot complain about that now._ _But even so... there was so much more we could_ _have done_ _. We could have watched that one television show… what was it? The one you said had a character who reminded you of me?_

“Alucard…” Yoko sniffled. “D-Don’t give up. Just… just hang on a little bit longer. We’ll fix you. I—I mean, if everyone else lived—everyone else _lived,_ Alucard—it shouldn’t be too hard for you, should it? You can do it. You can do it…”

“It… it is not a matter of giving up. I gambled with my life in Death's game and lost. An honorable man pays whatever he owes, Yoko… sooner or later.” Alucard cracked his eyes open one last time. Yoko looked like a mess, the agony of grief twisting her young face. “Tell me, does your wrist still hurt?”

Yoko shook her head, squeezing her eyes shut as if that would stop her tears from flowing. It wouldn’t, of course.

“Are you sure?” Alucard laid his hand on the splint covering her wrist, his heightened dhampyr senses picking up on the swollen and tender skin and cracked, misaligned bones underneath. Yoko winced and gasped. “There is no reason to lie to a dying man,” he scolded her.

With the last of his strength, Alucard channeled what little magical energies still flowed through him into her wrist. His hand lost its purchase and fell to the ground, resting against the verdant grass.

Yoko broke down sobbing, her shoulders shaking, her chest heaving as she curled up and wrapped her arms around him and buried her face in his chest, granting his cooling body a few extra degrees of warmth which would soon fade. Her tears dampened his collar. “Alucard… _Alucard, please…”_

Alucard glanced over to Julius. “Have you nothing to say, my friend?”

The last Belmont’s rough and calloused fingers squeezed Alucard’s hand as Julius looked over at Alucard. He let out a weak, ephemeral grin. “Hope I didn’t scare you, Al. Just thought you and Yoko deserved your moment.” He raised his eyes to the sky. “I… don’t think I ever really realized… how beautiful this world is.”

“Nor did I,” Alucard replied. He’d fought so long to preserve the world’s beauty, but in doing so, he’d spent his all but a few of his waking moments since his mother had died exposing himself to almost nothing else but its ugliness.

“Never got to tell you thanks, Alucard,” said Julius. “For coming back for me. Even if you were late. It’s better than nothing.”

“It was the least I could do, Julius. My friend.” Alucard closed his eyes again and shut out the world around him. “Yoko… do not worry about me. My life’s work is complete. The world, at long last, is safe from my father.”

“But…”

“Yoko. Let your tears run their course. But remember to let them dry.” Alucard knew better than anyone the importance of accepting death when it was one’s time to die.

Certainly better than his father, at least.

His mother had taught him as much.

“All the hardship we've endured today,” he told her, “was the fault of one man who failed to accept his loved ones' mortality. Take care not to follow in his footsteps, Yoko.”

“I… I thought I’d saved you,” Yoko sobbed. “Back in the castle… when you…”

“You _did_ save me. And long before that, too. From the day we first met, for the first time in hundreds of years, there were moments… moments with you by my side, Yoko, where I truly did enjoy my life _…”_

“I love you, Alucard,” Yoko told him, brushing the hair from his forehead. She kissed him on the cheek. “You… were an incredible friend. I love you.”

“I love you, too.” Alucard took one last deep breath of fresh, pure air, letting it rest in his lungs while he could still feel his lungs. “I am sorry… you will not be able to give me a 'netflix' as you promised last night, Yoko. Now, Julius… can you do me a favor?”

“Sure, pal. Anything.”

“Can you… outlive me? For as long as you can?”

“Can’t make any promises, but…” The old vampire killer gave Alucard’s hand a comforting squeeze. “I’ll try my best, Al.”

_Your best, will you?_

_That is fine._

_I truly believe we will meet again… but I am in no hurry to do so._

_Enjoy the rest of your life, Julius Belmont._

_Please._

_For your old friend Al’s sake._

That afternoon, Alucard, the only son and only living family of Dracula, passed away. The last sound he ever heard was that of the fading strains of birdsong. To the end, he had a smile on his lips; to the end, his fingers were intertwined with those of Julius Belmont, the last heir to the world’s longest bloodline of vampire slayers—one set of fingers ragged and rough yet young, the other set smooth and soft yet unfathomably old.

Those same leathery, calloused hands that had brought so much peace to Alucard in his final moments would next console the young woman he had left behind and give her the strength to go on.

–

Days passed.

Soft late-morning sunlight filtered in through the windows of the chapel, illuminating a small black coffin resting on the marble floor. The traditional elongated hexagon. Black lacquered wood, padded red velvet inside.

A tall caprine monster with snow-white fur and long, curved horns stood before the coffin, head bowed, his violet cloak draped over his shoulders as he laid a hand on the wood and traced the contours of a scarlet heart painted on the lid.

Asriel sat down in front of the coffin. “Hi, Chara. It’s me.” He sighed. “A lot has changed over the past week. I’ve made some new friends. And there’s… Um, this is kind of difficult.” Taking a moment to clear his throat, he went on. “I don’t need to talk to you anymore. Just thought I should let you know.”

A few wet drops landed on the lid of the coffin.

“I know you’re just an empty box, but thanks for being here for me all these years.” Asriel patted the lid softly. “You’ve been a great help. And between us—don’t ever let Chara know they owe their life to you.”

With that, Asriel stood up with the help of his cane (his legs were _mostly_ fine now, but the cane, a gift he’d sorely needed after the Cataclysm so many years ago, brought him comfort and eased the sharp twinges that occasionally reduced him to limping), wiped at his eye, and turned his back to the coffin.

The sunlight outside the little chapel was blinding for just a moment before Asriel’s eye adjusted to it. He stood there on the doorstep squinting a bit while spots danced in his field of vision.

“All done?” Chara took Asriel’s hand in theirs, grinning the sort of roguish grin that had, years ago, always told Asriel without fail that there was mischief to be made. In the sunlight, their pupils turned to slits.

“Yup.” Asriel nodded. “Alright, Chara. Let’s grab lunch.”

Chara twirled their parasol, an item they carried around not to protect their sensitive skin from the sun but simply to appear fashionable. “Are you so _eager_ to treat me to my last meal as a free monster, Azzy?”

Always the drama queen. “It’s _six months,_ Chara. And it’s not like we won’t _feed_ you,” Asriel assured them, clapping them on the shoulder. He and Undyne had come to an agreement the night they’d returned from Castlevania over what should be done with Chara. For the next six months or until Chara saw significant improvement they would live with Asriel and Toriel, never leaving the grounds of the royal palace save for weekly appointments with a therapist.

“There’s a _great_ Lebanese place around here—I’ve been buddies with the owner for thirteen years!” Asriel smiled. He’d had some good times and bad times there—mostly good times. In fact, he’d met his first crush there. “Free all-you-can-eat shawarma for friends of the King.”

“Shawarma? Yeah, it is a bit chilly out today. But let’s see…” Chara pulled out their phone, their fingers flying nimbly across the screen, and held it to their ear. “Soma! It’s me, your Auntie Chara!”

Asriel was perplexed. “A-Auntie _who?”_

“You and Mina have any plans for lunch today? My brother and I were thinking—Sushi? Really? Great! Azzy and I will be right there. See ya!” Chara pocketed the phone and grabbed Asriel by the wrist. “Alright, looks like we’re visiting your new daughter for lunch!”

“Hey, Soma isn’t—” Asriel tugged at his collar. He’d told Chara _once_ that being around Soma made him feel like how he imagined Asgore must have felt around him, and Chara had _completely_ taken it out of context—

“Come on, family guy.” Chara laughed and dragged Asriel along, teasing him all the way.

–

Soma and Mina were already at the sushi bar when Chara and Asriel got there. Soma already looked much different from the dazed young adult Asriel had met nearly a week ago: a great weight had been removed from her conscience, a weight she’d spent her whole life only partially-aware of.

Soma looked for once bright and refreshed, although there were still weary dark circles under her eyes. She was wearing makeup now, leading Asriel to wonder how grim and haggard she might look without it. Asriel and Chara took their seats at the bar next to her, unnoticed, as Soma picked at her fingernails and conversed in a low voice with Mina.

“ _Well, we gave it a shot,”_ Soma whispered to Mina, _“but… I-I think you’re_ really _trying to push pink stuff on me here. Can we try blue or purple next time? Just… stay away from pastels altogether, maybe?”_

With the injuries she’d sustained healed by her time spent with Dracula’s powers and the dirt and blood all long since washed away, no one could guess that Soma had gone through such a torturous gauntlet just a few days ago, and no one could imagine the traumas—physical, mental, and spiritual—she’d endured in such a short time.

But Asriel could.

He knew how lonely the nights could be, remembering the long nights he’d suffered through as a boy: how hard it was to sleep peacefully when he’d been young and covered in fresh mental wounds; how frightening it had been to wake up in a cold sweat with a scream in his throat because he’d remembered the sound of his bones snapping in the middle of the night; how desperately he’d always hoped there was someone down the hall to hear him on those nights.

Soma had Mina, but Asriel promised himself that he’d be there for her, too. If she needed him.

Asriel twirled a set of wooden chopsticks in his hand and glanced quickly over the menu, a durable little smart tablet placed in front of him. “So, Soma, what’re you having?”

Soma nearly leaped out of her skin, the overcoat draped over her shoulders (a recent acquisition to replace her old trench coat) dangling precariously. “Asriel! Chara!” she yelped. “Didn’t see you come in. What’s up?” Regaining her composure, she reached across Chara’s lap to shake Asriel’s hand.

Asriel took notice of the pink nail polish he’d overheard Soma talking about. “Nice nails, Soma.”

Soma withdrew her hand and shrugged, clearly a little embarrassed. “Eh. I don’t think it works for me.”

“Try something iridescent,” Chara suggested. “Make them shine like the carapace of an exotic beetle.”

Soma stroked her chin. “An exotic beetle, huh?”

Asriel shrugged. “Well, it’s all up to you, Soma.” He gave the menu a closer look. “Anything you’d recommend?”

“Please try the hamachi,” Mina suggested, pushing a plate arranged with delicate slices of pink yellowtail flesh across the bar at them.

Chara snapped apart their chopsticks, eyeing the plate hungrily. Asriel plucked out a piece of yellowtail and popped it into his mouth, savoring how the fish, so rich and buttery, all but melted in his mouth. “Good choice, you two.”

Mina held a piece of the California roll she and Soma had been splitting with her chopsticks, peering at it like a jeweler appraising a diamond. It was a thick cross-section, packed full to bursting and nearly dripping with sauces. “They _do_ make the rolls too big here,” she said.

Chara fumbled with their chopsticks as they tried to pluck a piece of sashimi from the plate. “Do they now, princess?”

“I-it’s not anything like that,” Mina insisted. “It’s just proper manners. If you can’t eat the entire thing in one bite, it will fall apart and make a mess.”

“You won’t wanna order the sushi burrito, then,” said Soma.

“Sushi _burrito?”_ Mina asked, her voice laced with skepticism. She muttered something in Japanese under her breath, her tone somewhat disgusted.

“Sushi _burrito?”_ Chara asked, enticed. They skimmed through the menu. “I’m getting that!”

Soma shoved a colorful segment of the roll into her mouth, chewed, and swallowed. “Maybe you’ve just got a small mouth, Mina.” She gestured to Asriel with her chopsticks as he sampled more of the hamachi. “Look, _Asriel_ doesn’t have any problems.”

Mina glanced at Asriel. “Well, that’s because he has a snout! If _I_ had a snout I wouldn’t…”

“Hmm. I bet _you_ know all about Mina’s mouth, Soma,” Chara said as they struggled to dab a generous helping of wasabi onto the yellowtail’s glistening pink surface. “I imagine it must be well-explored territory by now…”

Mina went red in the face.

“I-It’s okay, Mina.” Soma picked up the menu again, doing her best to ignore Chara’s innuendo. “Let’s try some more traditional fare.”

Chara kept drawing their finger along the menu, pursing their lips and shaking their head. “Do they serve _odori ebi_ here?” they asked.

“What, an entire burrito full of sushi isn’t enough for you? I don’t see it on here,” Asriel mused as he scrolled through his copy of the menu. “What is it?”

Mina winced. “Please do not tell him, Chara. He will not like it.”

“It’s Japanese for ‘dancing shrimp.’ It’s a special kind of sushi made with little baby shrimp, a form of _ikezukuri,_ ” Chara said as if they were reciting a fact they’d painstakingly memorized (they probably were).

“Oh, now you’re just showing off,” Soma said as she put in an order for another roll. “No way have you had that before. _No one_ eats that stuff anymore.”

“Some people do,” Mina corrected.

Chara ignored them. “Yes, it’s sashimi, served fresh as fresh can be.” They started to run their fingers up Asriel’s shoulder like little spider legs, giddily scratching against his sleeve. “You can feel those tiny baby shrimps’ little legs and antennae wiggling around in your mouth _because they’re still alive_ _as you eat them_ _!”_ they cackled.

Asriel let out a strained laugh and pulled his arm away. “You can’t scare me like that, Chara, we’re not kids anymore!”

“No,” Soma said, “it’s a real thing.”

Chara relented in their attempt to give Asriel the heebie-jeebies. “A shame, though,” they sighed, “that they don’t have it here. For the past few days…” Shaking their head, they wiped at their forehead. “It’s the strangest thing, but ever since we came back from Dracula’s castle, I’ve had these… _cravings…”_

Asriel knew Chara was still joking, but a chill ran up his spine nonetheless as Chara’s voice faded to a strained hiss. They _were_ joking, weren’t they? “Y-you alright?” He laid a hand on Chara’s shoulder as they panted like an animal.

“It’s just gotten stronger and stronger…” Chara licked their lips, their eyes darting back and forth between Asriel and Soma. Soma shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “An overwhelming urge to devour… to eat my fill… to gorge myself on the flesh of the living!” Their eyes, wild, wide, and red, pupils contracted into vertical slits, bored into Asriel’s as a wicked grin stretched itself from ear to ear, and their raised hands twisted into wicked, gnarled talons.

Asriel felt his entire body tense up, his muscles coiling under his fur like snakes ready to strike. Chara broke out in a vicious, wheezing cackle. “For it is none other than I, _Dracula,_ who now sits before you, liberated from the flames of Hell itself to once more bring perdition to the world of man! You _fooooool_ _i_ _s_ _h_ mort—”

Soma reached over behind Chara and yanked on their tail. They yelped and went completely rigid before slumping over the bar.

“That _hurt,”_ Chara pouted as they held their tail defensively in their lap.

“Chara! That was in _really_ bad taste,” Mina admonished them. “After everything that’s happened, how could you…!”

One of the chefs on the other side of the bar handed Chara the item they’d ordered. It was a seaweed wrap stuffed with rice and fish in the exact size and shape as a burrito—an affront to sushi if Asriel had ever seen one. Mina’s jaw dropped at the sight of it, horror in her eyes.

Soma held up her hand. “Um, excuse me, can I put in a special order of some fugu for my friend here?” She gestured to Chara. “And don’t skimp on the tetrodotoxin, please.”

Lunch wore on late into the afternoon, and Chara made no indication they were willing or ready to leave until after Soma and Mina had paid their bill—or, rather, Asriel had paid their bill (he insisted).

Soma stood up, shrugging on her coat. “Thanks for lunch, Your Highness,” she told Asriel. “We’re gonna stop by and see how Yoko’s holding up. Care to join us?”

Asriel shook his head. “I’d like to, but I’ve got to bring Chara home.”

Chara reached out and took Mina by the arm. “Wait.”

Mina waited and held Soma back as well.

“You’ll visit me, right, Mina?” Chara asked her.

“Of course,” she replied.

“And you, Soma. You’ll bring me a cake with a nail file hidden in it so I can use it to break out, right?”

“It’s _house arrest,_ Chara,” Asriel reminded them.

“Ah, I will miss the sun on my face,” said Chara, “but I will feel it nonetheless if you can deign to visit me, dearest—”

“We have a garden, you know,” said Asriel. Chara was always _so_ melodramatic. “You’re welcome to do whatever you want in it.” He thought better of his choice of words. “Except tunnel out.”

Soma patted Chara on the shoulder. “Don’t drive your brother crazy, okay?”

“Can’t make any promises, Soma.”

Asriel cleared his throat. “Oh, um, Soma, that reminds me. I told your mother and father you’d came here because I’d poached you for an internship. If it’s okay with you, well… I’d like to stay true to my word, if possible.”

Soma and Mina shared a conflicted glance, and Asriel immediately regretted his imposition. Mina was probably homesick, and Soma was the kind of person who’d doggedly follow her to the ends of the Earth—Asriel shouldn’t have tried to anchor Soma here if it meant she and Mina would have to go their separate ways. “I’ll, uh…” Soma paused, then smiled. “I’ll think about it.”

“No pressure.” Asriel gave the two girls a hug. “Just do what you think is right, like you always do.”

With that, Soma and Mina walked off into the proverbial sunset. Chara excused themselves and came back a few minutes later looking much refreshed, then followed Asriel out the door. The two of them stood on the sidewalk amid passers-by walking to and fro as the sunlight bore down on them.

“Well, Azzy,” Chara told Asriel, their soft and hopeful grin hiding a faint look of nervousness in their gorgeous scarlet eyes, “I guess this is it. I’ll see you again sometime.”

That last phrase made so little sense to Asriel that it took him a second to parse it, and by the time that second had passed, Chara had vanished like a desert mirage, the only trace of them a few telltale wisps of silvery fire and twirling sparks left on the air. Within seconds, it was as if they had never existed at all.

“Chara?”

His heart pounding, Asriel rushed back into the restaurant, his eye darting back and forth as he scanned the room for any sign of his sibling.

“ _Chara?”_

–

With Asriel distracted, Chara quietly slipped out of the restaurant and put as much distance between themselves and their brother as they could, knowing that despite the ache in their heart they were doing the right thing.

They couldn’t stay here. Not in this kingdom. Not on this mountain. They had seen their home torn apart and wiped off the map eleven times, and every road, every building, every pedestrian walking down the sidewalk, every child and adult, served as a stark reminder of that trauma. And then there were people like Undyne and Alphys—friends they’d known so well in the other world who would never know them so well again.

No matter what Asriel could do, Mount Ebott couldn’t be a home for Chara anymore—only a prison.

A skeletal figure in a deep, dark black-violet robe materialized out of thin air before Chara as they limped to a stop in a quiet, undisturbed little park ringed by budding trees. Dappled sunlight shone on the reaper’s burnished scythe.

 _Death._ Not a figure Chara relished seeing.

“Ah, right on schedule,” Death croaked. “Castlevania’s new mistress bade me deliver you to her, as you’d arranged. I do hope there are no hard feelings between us, by the way, Chara Dreemurr—that little game of ours was strictly part of my job.”

 _If I had my way, you’d be unemployed in a beat of your non-existent heart._ Chara gingerly held out their hand. “Very well. Let us depart.”

They took Death’s cold, hard, bony fingers. It was time to go—not to the undiscovered country, but to a place adjacent to it. A place where they could flourish and, hopefully, do some good for the world.

A familiar voice cut through the air. _“Chara!”_

Chara looked back and saw Asriel, panting with his hand on his knee, leaning on his cane.

“Chara…” He looked up at them. “Death! If you do anything to Chara, I—I’ll beat the hell out of you again! Get away from them!”

“Death isn’t doing anything to me. I’m going with him to Castlevania.” Chara felt a lump grow in their throat. “I’m sorry for this, Asriel. I’ll be back someday,” they said, the words fighting to stay inside them. “Remember, I love you.”

They meant every word of it.

Chara swallowed hard. “Asriel, I—”

What Asriel said to Chara next stunned them into silence.

“Shut up, Chara! You said you were sorry back in the castle. That wasn't just a word, that was a _promise!”_ Asriel stood up, still leaning on his cane, an iron bite coming into his voice. “Apologies aren’t do-overs. They don’t give you a clean slate. You can’t say them and then run off to make the same mistakes over and over again! You have to change. We  _both_ have to change. And we'll have to do it  _together.”_

Chara felt another fresh ache split their heart.

“You aren’t going to get better by running off and chasing the same dragons as before. But you’re going to get better by serving your sentence and atoning for the horrible things you’ve done. You’re going to get better by getting the help you need. You’re going to get better… because when you’re suffering, when you’re lonely, when you feel like the whole world is against you, I’ll be there. And Mom, too.” Asriel smiled, his eye bright despite the tears moistening it. “Come on, Chara. We won’t give up on you. So don’t give up on us like this!”

Chara took a step forward, blinking back unbidden tears they blamed not on the ache running through their heart but the lingering pains from the Castlevania incident.

Asriel held their hand out just a little farther, their fingers twitching a little in anticipation. There was a flicker of hope in his eye as the corners of his mouth twitched just a little farther upward.

Chara looked back at their skeletal host. Asriel’s face fell.

“Death,” said Chara, “Tell Mistress Willowrot that if she is ever _truly_ in need of my help…” They faced forward yet again, dismissing Death with a wave of their hand. “She will know where to find me. Begone.”

With an exasperated groan, the grim reaper dissolved into the warm spring air. As the spirit vanished Asriel bounded forward and swept Chara up in his arms, his cane clattering to the ground behind him. The two of them fell to the grass, wrapped up in each other’s arms.

“ _Chara!”_ Asriel cried out, laughing in relief. “You scared me, you jerk!”

“Asriel…” Tears started to well up in Chara’s scarlet eyes, and Chara buried their face in their hands, scrunching up as if they could fold themselves out of existence if they tried hard enough. “I—I don’t know what I did—what I must have done—” Their trembling voice came out muffled through their fingers. “To deserve a brother like you…”

Asriel forced down a growing lump in his throat. He wormed his fingers around Chara’s and pried the hands from their face, and then cupped his paws around Chara’s hands with as light and gentle of a touch as he could, lowering them into their lap. Then he closed his eyes, patted Chara on the cheek, and kissed them on the forehead.

Chara took hold of him and sobbed into his shoulder the exact same way they hadn’t done since they’d been a child in their first few months living in the castle when they’d hardly spoken a word and jumped at their own shadow. They choked out cries of raw, wordless emotion, bawling their eyes out the way Asriel used to at the drop of a hat when _he_ was little, letting out loud sobs punctuated with breathless sputtering and whimpering.

“It’s okay.” Asriel squeezed his eye shut as tears wetted his fur. Likewise, Chara felt their own tears, hot and salty, drip over their lip and into their mouth. “You’re gonna be okay.”

The moment the two of them spent embraced, crying in each others’ arms, seemed to stretch on into eternity, just as Castle Dracula had stood frozen within the solar eclipse.

 _I think,_ Chara thought, _I understand now… I finally understand… why Ariel said, ‘O brave new world, that has such people in’t.’_

For the first time in a long time, Chara felt truly at home.

And, considering the stunt they’d just pulled, they felt they would be at home for a long, long time, whether they liked it or not.

–

As the sunlight shone through the trees Asriel held Chara to his side. Chara curled up closer, snuggling Asriel like a giant cat.

Chara _was_ a lot like a cat, now that Asriel thought about it. They were very proud, very independent, very particular about who they chose to open up to, willing to kill or grievously injure whoever displeased them, compulsively knocked things off of tables…

Asriel lifted up his hand and unconsciously began to scratch behind the foxish ears protruding from their unruly hair. In response Chara pressed closer to Asriel’s side, burying their face in the side of Asriel’s neck like a vampire moving in for the kill. Asriel was certain the bushy vulpine tail they’d acquired as a result of Soma’s magical triage was wagging now as Chara dug in, snuggled closer, and made sure Asriel was scratching in _just_ the right place.

 _“Qu'est-ce que signifie,”_ Chara muttered, _“apprivoiser?”_

Asriel stopped. “Huh?”

“I didn’t say stop.”

“Oh. Sorry.” Asriel kept going.

“If you tell anyone about this,” Chara muttered despite how much they clearly enjoyed it, “I’ll kill you.”

As a kid, Asriel had always been ticklish behind his ears, and Chara had gotten quite a lot of mileage out of that. He couldn’t help but be a little amused that now Chara had the same weak point. “Aw, you’re _adorable_ now.”

Chara snickered. “Watch your tongue, mangy cur. I was _always_ adorable.”

Asriel finally felt like a kid again—the way he’d felt before Zero, before he’d gone on his doomed flight to the surface, before Flowey, before Frisk, before he’d lost his eye, before the Christmas Eve Cataclysm, when it had just been him and Chara joined together at the hip. Just a boy, young and innocent, chasing after a precocious little hellraiser to the ends of the Earth because whenever he’d looked into his sibling’s scarlet eyes he’d seen the moon and all the stars in the heavens.

For so long those eyes had frightened Asriel, and while he would never look up to his adopted older sibling the way he once had, at least their wild red eyes no longer scared him.

Anyway, those eyes were now closed, and Chara was snuggled against him just like old times, and as much as Asriel wanted to just fall asleep right there and bask in the spring sunlight, it would have been very unbecoming of a king. So he grabbed his cane, pulled himself up with his arm wrapped around his groggy sibling’s waist, and carried Chara back home.

Chara would stay by their family's side for a long, long time.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, parting is such sweet sorrow. Also, endings are a _huge_ pain in the ass to write. Every time I have to write an ending I start to understand a little better why so many stories go unfinished!
> 
> Thank you so much for sticking with this fic, all 45 chapters and 250,000 words of it! I hope you had as much fun reading it as I had writing it. It's been a wild, wild ride, and now it's over.
> 
> I'll add an epilogue in the future, but it won't likely be essential reading--it'll mostly be fluff showing where the characters end up a few months after the story. I'll probably have some commentary on this fic to share on a later date as well. There might be future installments in this series, however... but they most likely won't be 100K+ word-long novels. There are still some dangling threads I might want to tie up later :p
> 
> In the meantime, why not pick up [my in-progress Undertale/Nier Automata fanfic](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14042868/chapters/32345190)?
> 
> Oh, and before you go, here, have a Soma.
> 
> (source: [Patrick Robinson,](http://patmandx-art.tumblr.com/) my good friend who is currently open for commissions)


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